Diverse
by hazelle
Summary: How life could have gone very, very wrong. Pilot AU, Chlark, TC.
1. Prologue

**This is the longest story I've ever written, I've been working on it since March and I'm so pleased to finally post it! Many thank yous go to my beta hbthomas, who is the best beta-reader ever and so far has helped me out a lot with this story. Thank you!**

**Summary: AU of the Pilot, contains Chlark, TC.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own, you don't sue, you just read the fic and leave a comment or two. ;)**

**Diverse**

**Prologue: Collision**

Fate is a funny thing. Unpredictable, unfavourable to most, and some even say deliberately awkward.

Choice has no place in fate. Fate is the be-all and end-all, the journey may be different, but ultimately we all end where we are supposed to end, be that in glory, honour, or self-realisation.

The trials we overcome make us better people, there is no doubt of that. Hardship builds character, what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, suffering ignites compassion and so on. But sometimes people find the trials they face too difficult - it is easier to just give up. These people emerge from hardship weaker rather than stronger. It is a test of character, a rite of passage if you will. Some of these rites are harder than others, as you are about to find out.

God only asks of us what he knows we can deal with. He just asked Clark Kent for a lot, lot more.

---

**Smallville, October 1989**

The many individual screams streamed together into one shocking cacophony of fear as blazing trails of smoke plummeted seemingly from nowhere.

The noise was enough to jolt even the sturdiest of hearts, without the added shuddering in the normally solid ground as what seemed to be miniature suns fell to the earth. With the general chaos and destruction that accompanied the meteor shower, it was impossible not to be terrified.

The meteors plunged into the small town with horrifying speed and effect; homes and places of business went up in flaming ruins, cars leaped into the air, the metal twisting and turning as if some invisible force were toying with them, roads boiled and became puddles of molten tar.

At the very heart of the town, a small, dark haired girl, complete with a pink fairy princess costume, watched as her parents died before her eyes, the flaming meteor reducing the family car to nothing but a smoking exhaust pipe on the road.

Nearly ten miles away, at the very edge of town, a lean man with immaculately long hair and a beard scowled as the men he was negotiating with refused to sign their Creamed Corn Factory over to him. He didn't notice his only son slip away.

Only ten metres away, a boy whose hair glinted red in the sun ran for his life, gasping the sparse air into his lungs to fuel his legs. He could hear the wall of dirt coming for him, closing in as he wheezed precious oxygen into his asthmatic lungs.

A mere ten feet behind him, a half-naked teenager closed his eyes against the billowing dust that foreshadowed the blast that would put him into a deep coma for twelve years.

Back near the town centre, amidst all the chaos, one confused little boy stood, innocently unafraid.

He'd spotted the overturned red truck by the roadside, its exhaust still smoking and the wheels feebly turning in midair in hopeless protest. At only three years old and having spent most of his short life inside a space craft, the boy had no concept of how odd the scene looked as he knelt, tilting his head curiously at the couple inside.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing…?" The man said to his wife, never taking his eyes off the boy.

The woman moaned and turned her head to her husband, her mouth dropping open when she saw past him to the boy.

They worked quickly with the boy's help to get out of the truck, wary that the tank would explode, and the woman wrapped the little boy in a spare blanket from the back and into her arms.

She glanced up to see her husband clearing them a path, a frown on his tanned face as he tossed a few stones aside. She lagged behind, partly because of the extra weight she was carrying but mainly because she didn't want to remind her husband that the little boy was still there. She knew it was silly, but she felt the longer she could keep the boy away from him the more chance she'd have of keeping him.

Wordlessly, they crested the top of a small hill, pausing at the highest point to look down into the shallow, burnt and broken valley. There were so many rocks strewn about the place that at first neither noticed the rather unusually shaped and coloured 'rock' imbedded in the dip.

Then the man's eyes picked out its alien nature, and he gasped and stumbled backwards a few steps, eyes wide with something between fear and disbelief.

"My God…" He whispered, and his wife soon spotted the object of his attention.

"Daniel, what is it?" She asked, staring at the craft and stepping closer, eyes narrowed to get a better look.

"If I believed in this kind of thing I'd say it's a spaceship, Rose." He said in a low voice, now a good few feet behind his wife.

At that Rose glanced back over her shoulder at him, a slight teasing smile on her face despite the seriousness of the situation.

"Then since you don't believe in 'this kind of thing' what do you say it is?"

Daniel shook his head, licking his lips in a nervous habit before saying slowly, "I say it's a spaceship. No doubt about it."

Rose's smile faded and she looked down at the little boy, who hadn't said a word since he'd met the couple. He sensed her gaze and his eyes moved from Daniel's face to hers, a small frown wrinkling his forehead as if he was trying to understand what was taking place. Rose hefted him as he started to slide and said, smiling for his benefit, "Then I guess this makes you a special little guy." She paused for a long moment, debating whether to say what she really wanted to or not. The 'special little guy' reached up and toyed with her long blonde hair. "That makes two special people in my life." She finally said, with a pointed look at her husband, who couldn't help but frown.

"Rose…" He started, in a voice that suggested they'd talked about this many times before and he was beginning to lose patience with the topic.

"No, Daniel. You know how much I want this. He needs a home, I need a child to love. It's that simple." She cut him off, standing a little straighter as she caught and held his gaze.

The staring contest seemed to last forever in Rose's mind, her dark eyes watered and she immediately wanted to look away, but she knew she had to do this if she wanted to keep this child. She supposed it was much like staring a dog in the eyes, the first to look away was the loser, the weaker of the two. Rose had looked away on far too many occasions in her lifetime.

Eventually Daniel dropped his gaze to the spacecraft, studying its contours, and said in a defeated voice, "I don't think 'simple' ever came into the equation."

**End of Prologue**

**Please review!**


	2. Addition

**Thank you for the reviews and sorry for the wait, (school sucks at the moment), I'll try to update more often from now on. **

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for betaing!**

**Diverse  
****Part One: Addition**

**Smallville, May 2005**

The strong, waxy aroma of well-polished wood was the first thing he noticed. Then the lingering, sweet scent of apple pie as he stepped into his new home, (minding to duck his head lest he bang it on the doorframe,) hit his nostrils. The air in the Kent house was fresh, clean, full or promise of a better life.

It didn't smell quite like home, but he supposed he would grow used to it.

Just like he'd grown used to the fact that his mother wasn't coming back.

Just like he'd grown used to the daily drunken rages the man he'd called father was prone to.

Just like he'd grown used to the barren, metallic confines of the research cell in Metropolis, monitored day and night by a team of knowledge-hungry scientists.

"Clark? Would you like something to eat?" Martha Kent's uncertain voice broke through his reverie and he jumped a little, wide eyes darting to rest on his new official mother, as of that morning.

She wasn't so different from his old mother, though they looked nothing alike he could see she was a good person. The man, Jonathan, he was still wary of, but deep down he knew he was a good person, too. He'd become an expert judge of character over the years, determining which people would be best to befriend in the hope they would release him from his prison. It never worked, but still he had years of weighing others' characters to ready him for this new challenge.

Clark eventually shook his head once, but said nothing. Martha looked helplessly to her husband.

Jonathan sighed before clearing his throat and stepping closer to Clark, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder in a friendly gesture. Clark shied away, backing up several paces until he was pressed against the kitchen counter. His eyes grew even wider with terror and apprehension, and he gazed up at his new father as the Kent family kitchen seemed to melt away to be replaced by a much starker home, paint peeling off the greying walls, long-empty beer bottles cluttering the floor, ashtrays overflowing.

_Clark's father towered over his small, eight year old frame, as he advanced excruciatingly slowly. A snarl crossed the man's lips as little Clark blinked and looked away from his father's challenging eyes. He'd lost the battle of the wills, just as he'd done so many times before. He knew his punishment for intruding on these homo sapiens five years ago._

_Daniel Boswell's breath was alcoholic and foul to his nostrils, suffocating, as his father yelled drunkenly in his eardrums._

"_It's all your damn fault! Rose wanted to take you in, not me! If it was up to me you'd be a science experiment by now! If it weren't for you, your mother would be alive and healthy!"_

_Clark shook his head frantically, the steady trickle of tears giving way to a full-blown flood as he denied what he was hearing._

"_I knew you were trouble from the moment I saw you!"_

"_No." He murmured, pressing his tiny hands to his ears to try to block out the sound of his father's enraged voice. "NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo…"_

"_You killed her!"_

"NO!"

The Kent's warm kitchen jerked back into focus with surprising clarity, Martha standing helpless by the sink, Jonathan staring at him in concern, his arm still outstretched towards the teenager.

Clark's heart was beating so fast from the sudden repressed memory that he thought it would explode out of his chest any second. He shook his head, stemming the tears that threatened to overwhelm him and bolted for the door, yanking it open and rushing out into the night.

Jonathan's arm fell defeated to his side. Husband and wife watched their newly adopted son jog down the driveway, come to a stop at the end and sit down in the dirt. The moonlight picked out his back heaving.

Martha let out a shaky sigh, releasing a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Wordlessly, her husband took two quick strides to envelop her in a hug from behind. She relaxed into his arms and they began to rock gently from side to side, soothing each other by just being there.

After a while, Jonathan brought up the previously unspoken question that had been on both their minds all day. "You really think this will work out?"

Martha hesitated before replying. "Honestly? I don't have a clue. Lex warned us he'd be difficult."

Jonathan thought back to just that morning, when they'd been called to Lex's office in Metropolis to discuss an 'urgent matter.' They'd never dreamed they'd return home with the custody of a fifteen year old boy from another planet who Lex had broken out of the dark confines of his father's lab.

"He did." Jonathan agreed, no trace of hostility in his voice. Then he chuckled. "Personally, I think 'difficult' was a bit of an understatement, don't you?"

Martha simply glanced up and gave him a sad smile in reply. There was a lull in the conversation as they watched Clark stand up and lean against the fence post, tilting his head towards the night sky. They both wondered what he was thinking, if his thoughts were with the parents that had abandoned their son to live with strangers several billion light-years away. The slump in his shoulders told them he wasn't thinking of anything good, though they supposed he hadn't experienced much 'good' in his short life to think of.

"I should go out to him." Martha said, already starting to pull away from the warm embrace to fetch her coat.

"Don't." Jonathan pulled her back, kissing the top of her head. "He needs time. You'll only scare him off."

Martha sighed and agreed reluctantly, knowing he was right.

"He'll be alright." Jonathan said in an attempt to assure her. The words sounded strangely hollow even to his own ears.

"Yes. I know." Martha said without an ounce of conviction.

Jonathan didn't reply and they again lapsed into comfortable silence for some time, until Martha spoke, "Do you remember, what you said to me, at the adoption service ten years ago?"

Jonathan nodded. "It didn't feel right, adopting a kid so soon after…" He couldn't bring himself to say it, to dredge up feelings long stifled and pushed to the back of his mind.

"After the miscarriage." Martha continued, swallowing deeply as her voice wavered. She'd told herself the only way to move forward was to accept the past. "It didn't feel _right _before."

Jonathan nodded, knowing what she meant. The most painful thing he'd ever had to go through had not been the death of his baby, it had been going to Metropolis to pick out a… a _replacement_… from the rows and rows of healthy babies. That hadn't felt right.

"But now, when I look at him, so scared and alone… it feels _right_, Jonathan."

"I know." He rested his chin on the top of her head, drawing his wife's body even closer to his own. "It does. But this isn't going to be easy."

Martha felt excitement bubble up inside of her. That warning meant he'd given in, as she knew he would eventually. She wasn't the only one who felt the connection.

"I knew this marriage wasn't going to be easy when you proposed to me twenty years ago. I still said yes. Do you want to know why?" She turned, twisting around in his arms to look at his face.

"Why?"

"Because I have faith in us. I have faith in Clark, too. We can do this." She told him earnestly, eyes sparkling with love and determination.

There was a long pause, then, "I hope you're right." Came Jonathan's soft reply.

---

**Smallville, November 2005**

"You were right."

Martha Kent glanced back from her newspaper to see her son standing awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs, having just silently sneaked down them. She couldn't help but smile. Six months ago, she and Jonathan had had enough trouble getting him to speak when spoken to, or indeed stay in the room with them for longer than five minutes, but here he was, talking to her of his own free will and seeking out her company. They'd come a long way, she realised. A long, long way.

"About what?" She replied, turning back to her paper. She knew he didn't like to be the centre of attention, a personality trait she'd become accustomed to through trial and error. Grimacing, she thought back to the time she'd invited Maggie from the feed store over for dinner. The kind old woman had fussed over Clark like a mother hen. Maggie could have sworn he'd disappeared into thin air right before her astonished eyes, but luckily hindsight made her doubt herself.

"The tractor broke down again." Clark told her quietly, and headed over to the cupboard, digging a glass out from the back.

"Ah." Martha said, turning the page.

"Third time this week." Clark commented, pouring milk into the glass.

"I knew it." Martha had to marvel at his impeccable behaviour as she watched him put the carton back into the fridge, she only had to tell him once not to do something like drinking straight from the bottle and he never did it again. Given the choice, though, she'd rather have him rebel a little than let people walk all over him as she'd learnt he was prone to do.

"I know you did. Dad owes you ten bucks." Clark's voice penetrated her thoughts, and she looked up, a smile on her face as she noted he'd called Jonathan 'Dad.' They really had come a long way.

She folded her newspaper up, and leaning on her elbows she craned forward and said in what was meant to be a lightly teasing tone, "And how would you know about that, Clark Kent?"

It had been the wrong thing to say. Clark's eyes dropped from hers to the floor, guilt and fear changing his expression. The slightest reprimand could change his demeanour in the space of a second, and once more Martha cursed the so called 'parents' who'd scarred this beautiful, wonderful child for life. He said nothing but glanced up at her with worried eyes, as if expecting a punishment though he'd done nothing wrong. If Martha's heart hadn't already melted it would have been in pain at the look on his face.

"It's alright, Clark. Don't worry, I'm not mad." She said gently, and he frowned slightly as if trying to figure out if she was being sincere or not.

At that moment the door slammed open and Jonathan stormed in, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of a gloved and oily hand. Clark started, whipping around to face the noise before relaxing, but only slightly, when he saw it was only Jonathan.

Jonathan strolled over to Martha, kissing her on the cheek and not even noticing he'd caused such distress. Clark started towards the door, forgetting the glass of milk in his haste to get some air.

"Clark, you ready for your first day of school, son?"

Jonathan's voice halted him in his tracks and he looked back, nodding at he same time as saying, "Yeah. I mean, I guess. I'm going to go… feed the cows." With that he took his opportunity to escape and headed out the door with startling speed, though not startling in the way of 'super'.

In fact, Clark hadn't displayed any of his powers during the six months he'd been staying with the Kents; they'd soon come to realise it was a sort of taboo subject with the teenager though they had yet to find out exactly why. Still, they couldn't help but secretly gape when he accidentally let the knife slip whilst he was cutting potatoes only to have the sharp blade bounce off his skin, the sharp metal now blunt and twisted.

"Sure…" Jonathan trailed off, watching Clark's disappearing back. He turned back to Martha with a 'what was all that about' expression, but she simply shrugged and sighed in reply.

Jonathan shook his head and tugged the oily gloves off, tossing them to land on the kitchen counter. Martha snatched them up with a frown. "Jonathan." She said, a warning tone in her voice. She'd just cleaned the work surface and wasn't about to let it get dirty only a few minutes later.

"Sorry." He said absently, fishing the milk bottle put the fridge and bringing it to his lips.

"You know, it doesn't reflect well on you when your son behaves better than you do." Martha's dry voice came from behind him and he sheepishly fetched a glass.

"Sorry." He said again. "Clark's still not putting a toe out of line?"

Martha shook her head. "It's like he's scared to go wrong. Like we'll hit him, or… or send him away as a punishment or something."

Jonathan looked at his wife. "Well, after all he's been through you can't expect him not to have some abandonment issues."

Martha flinched despite herself as he reminded her all the suffering their son had endured.

Jonathan noticed and said a little more softly, "What I'm trying to say is, don't expect too much. We've come so far already, there's bound to be some bumps along the road."

"Hmm." Martha said in reply, rubbing the counter down with a wet cloth again without even realising it. After a while she said suddenly, "Do you really think he's ready to go to school?"

"He's got to go sometime, sweetheart." Jonathan reminded her, taking up the newspaper she'd left.

"I know." She admitted sadly.

"He's been up since five, excited about it." Jonathan said, now eating some toast with too much marmalade balancing precariously on top.

"Or worried about it." Martha said under her breath. Jonathan didn't hear her.

---

Outside, Clark didn't go to feed the cows as he'd said he would, but walked up the dusty old road leading to the front of the Kent farm. He kicked at the stones as he walked, sending up billowing clouds of dust as he did so, but the dust didn't bother him. Just like knives and fire didn't bother him. What really bothered him was the impending school day.

He hadn't been in close contact with kids his own age for nearly five whole years - half a decade. It was a long, long time and now Clark's stomach was twisting in knots, figuratively speaking of course. The only time his stomach really could knot was when meteor rocks were around.

Speaking of meteor rocks… he backed off from the dull, green glow in the grass, the beginnings of a reaction starting to take place. He stood just out of its range, transfixed by the sight of the little green rock he'd seen every day for five years of his life. They'd become bitter enemies, he and that little green rock. A breeze suddenly blew across the track, parting the grass for Clark to see the whole meteor clearly. He trembled.

_He trembled as the scientist leaned closer, a glowing green syringe aimed straight for the artery in his neck. The man wore a white coat and gloves, a pale green mask obscuring the lower half of his face as if he was worried he'd catch some sort of germ from Clark._

_Clark didn't mind, he'd much rather be left alone than to be touched by this man who'd already hurt him so much._

_The needle burned with a brighter light as it hovered next to Clark's neck, taunting him by keeping him awake in such agony. Fire tore up and down every single muscle, every nerve, every cell in his body. He prayed for the moment the liquid would enter his body and put him out of such agony with pain-free sleep._

_True, the liquidised meteors in his veins would hurt a hell of a lot more than just being in close proximity to them, but he knew it would only be a second before he passed out from the pain. When he'd first come here it had taken much longer for him to fall unconscious, but over time his resistance to the rocks had worn down, and now he blessed the times he was put to sleep with the injections. If it was the only relief he could get, he would take it with open arms._

_The scientist laughed softly as Clark arched his body up to the needle, reading his body language and knowing every second he prolonged injecting the substance into the boy's body, the longer he was prolonging his pain._

_His small smirk widening, he adopted a relaxed position, sitting next to Clark as of they were chatting over a cup of tea and perhaps a biscuit. Clark squirmed and trembled again._

"_So, Clark. How's your day been so far?"_

_He didn't reply, his lips drawn back against his teeth in a grimace of pain. The scientist chuckled lowly and leaned closer._

"_I said, how was your day Clark?" There was no trace of laughter in his voice, now only grim determination that told Clark he was going to be there for a long time._

"_Clark! Answer me!"_

_Clark forced his eyes open into slits, and once he'd seen the foul face of his tormentor he felt a new sense of purpose. He set his teeth together, locking his jaw in a gesture of defiance._

"_Clark!" The man said again, getting irate. "Clark!"_

"Clark?"

Clark jumped and whirled around, his breathing ragged, his eyes clouded with fear. Lex Luthor stood before him, shielding his eyes from the glare of the early morning sun with one hand.

"Clark?"

Clark averted his eyes, still struggling to breathe. "Hi. Er, what - what are you doing out here?"

Lex let slip a smile, turning his back on Clark and wandering leisurely to lean on the fence. His impeccable black shoes squeaked and seemed to repel the dust wherever he trod. "I've come to wish you good luck, of course." A pause, then Lex glanced back. "Nervous?"

"No." Clark's voice sounded shaky and uncertain to his own ears.

Lex gave him an odd stare that told him it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. The silence stretched uncomfortably. Clark fiddled nervously and tried to pluck up the courage to say what he wanted to.

"Why-" Lex's cool gaze fixed on him. Clark hesitated. "I'm going to miss my bus." He said finally and backed off along the drive to the house.

Lex simply nodded sadly, and climbed into his car. Clark quickened his pace, cursing himself for being such a coward. He could have prodded their precarious friendship on the road back to normal if he'd only he'd taken the chance when he'd had it. The meteor rock's and Lex's presence faded the further he went.

Only when he was at the gate did he pause and glance back. An involuntary shiver tickled his spine at the sight of the innocent-looking stone blending in with the rich green grass.

**End of Part One**

**south manger 2004: I think this chapter answers your question. :)**

**Doranwen: Aww thank you I'm so flattered! Hope this chapter isn't disappointing.**

**chloedouble1011: Thanks for reviewing Mindgames BTW! I changed the names because Jonathon and Martha don't find Clark, Daniel and Rose Boswell do. I wasn't sure whether to keep the first part of the prologue in actually - depends on what you want it for?**

**Emily M. Hanson: These are OCs, you'll see what happened to them in flashbacks throughout the rest of the story. :)**

**Also thanks to magpiez55, iluvsmallville1 and of course htbthomas. I thought I'd do a list because it's nice to be appreciated!**

**P.S. The next chapter will be more interesting, that's your incentive to return and leave lots of lovely reviews!**


	3. Initiation

**Here it is, a couple of days earlier than last time. Whoo!**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for betaing! **

**Diverse **

**Part Two: Initiation**

There was something unusual about the new kid that nobody could figure out.

Besides the nervous-bordering-on-panicky look that he shot around the halls and anyone who passed too close to him, the way he seemed to hunch in on himself to make his six foot frame less noticeable and the fact that he went out of his way to avoid human contact, there was something in his… _air_… that screamed outsider, recluse, alien.

Despite his good looks, he would never completely fit in no matter how hard he tried. And at that particular moment, he didn't seem to be doing a very good job of trying to fit in at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

"Hey Lana, who's the new kid?" Whitney Fordman leaned down to whisper to his girlfriend, not wanting the 'kid' to hear.

Lana followed his gaze and frowned before shaking her head. "I don't know. I don't think I've seen him around Smallville before…" She trailed off and tilted her head from side to side, squinting a little. She watched intently as Clark made his way down the corridor, avoiding anyone's touch like the plague.

Whitney glanced at her. "What?" He said bluntly, a small bubble of jealousy forming in his stomach at the intense expression on his girlfriend's face.

"I don't know." Lana said, trying to dismiss the matter, but something in her tone told Whitney she wanted to say more. She glanced up at him and took the hint. "I just get the feeling I've seen him before." She shrugged and turned back to her locker.

Whitney looked back at the boy. "Yeah… perhaps he's one of those guys who seem to have a familiar face, you know?"

"Right." Lana said, and smiled brightly for her boyfriend, pretending she'd forgotten about the guy already.

"Ok." Whitney smiled back, reassured, and pecked her on the cheek, already starting to walk away, tossing a football from hand to hand casually. "Wish me luck on the game!" He called suddenly, slowing his pace to hear her reply.

Lana looked up from her locker and grinned. Whitney didn't need luck, he could win the game all by himself. Or so she thought sometimes. "Good luck. Got my necklace?"

"Right here." Whitney grinned, patting the pocket of his letterman's jacket. "I've got to get to Chemistry, see you after the game?" He added, walking backward nonchalantly as the crowd parted like water for the star of the football team.

"Sure. Have fun with ionic equations!" She added on impulse, a cheeky grin forming, and Whitney groaned before disappearing into the crowd.

Lana's smile faded as soon as he turned away, and her stare was immediately drawn back to the new guy, who was now searching for his locker with a lost sort of expression. She watched curiously as someone bumped into him and he shied away so fast Lana almost thought he was blurred around the edges. Frowning slightly, she glanced back to make sure there was no sign of Whitney before heading in a beeline towards him.

Before she could even get remotely close to him a number of broad, letterman jacket-covered backs got in the way. The gang zeroed in on Clark as if he was the fox and they were the hounds, Josh Blake, the ringleader, stepping up to the front. The new kid was leaning against the lockers, almost squeezing himself into the corner. She couldn't hear the exchange, but she saw it with crystal clear clarity. Josh stood directly in front of the new kid, his stance purposefully intimidating with his three cronies fanning out behind like bodyguards. Figures, she thought, dogs always run in packs.

However, when Josh knocked his books to the floor and the boy began to visibly shake, she started to stride over to them, determined to do something.

"Aww, whatsa matter? Did 'ickle baby lose 'is bottle?" One of the bodyguards taunted in an exaggerated baby voice. Lana felt her blood boil and was just about ready to slap Josh across his smarmy face when the boy stood up from his hunched position in the corner, revealing his true height. He towered over all four of the jocks, and despite himself Josh took an automatic step back as the boy's eyes seemed to glow with anger.

Lana's step faltered and she watched in disbelief as Josh hastily made his exit, his bodyguards trailing behind. Lana shot Josh a glare as he shoved past her, minus his usual cocky leer. She made sure he was gone before turning back to the new guy, watching as he blinked and sighed, looking down as if concentrating on the a spot on the floor. When he looked back up he'd stopped shaking and his eyes had returned to the normal grey-blue she'd seen before.

Forcing a smile, she stepped forward and picked up a couple of his books that scattered the floor around his feet.

"Hey." Lana said as a greeting, a friendly smile to welcome him. His head snapped round and his eyes locked onto hers, his irises widening in surprise.

"You dropped a few of these." She added, instead of 'Josh Blake knocked them out of your hands.' She figured reminding him about his encounter with the bully wouldn't be a good way to introduce herself.

Lana held the books out to him, and he stared at them as if they were the plague. He glanced back up at her face before cautiously taking the books from her hands into his trembling ones. Without a word he immediately ducked down and gathered up the rest, then from his kneeling position, looked up at her in curiosity.

She couldn't help but let a little nervous laugh escape her throat. "Are you ok?" Again she received no answer, so feeling a little slighted, she offered him a hand to help him up.

He stared at the hand and quickly got to his feet and backed up several steps, pressing his body against the locker and glancing around as if looking for an escape route. Her forehead wrinkled, but she decided to ignore his strange reaction at being spoken to and instead ploughed on, the smile fading only a little. "I don't think I've seen you around here before. I'm Lana Lang."

She waited for a response, watching as the seconds turned to minutes with none. Lana started to become concerned. "What's your name?" She tried again, but still received no response.

When Lana realised the conversation was dying a slow but steady death, she produced one last smile and said, "Well, welcome to Smallville High." She ducked her head. "I hope you like it here."

He smiled slightly as well, and Lana's smile widened in pure relief that she hadn't offended him or something. It was the first sign of friendliness Lana had seen, although it was only a fraction of the beam he could produce. Her smile fading, his did also, following her every movement with his eyes.

Lana gestured back in the vague direction of a classroom. "I'd better get to class…"

She waited a moment then took his silence for consent. Dodging through he crowd, she paused long enough to throw an intrigued smile back in his direction, before entering her next class just as the bell rang.

---

The place was surprisingly secure for a school shop. Wailing screeches of alarms sounded as soon as the bandana wrapped hand plunged through the window, scattering glass shards across the display and shiny floor.

He wasn't worried about the noise, though. After surviving a coma for twelve years he didn't spend too much time worrying about anything. He'd used up enough of his lifetime asleep with a few dozen wires running up and down his body being the only things keeping him from falling into a deeper sort of sleep, the sort he'd never wake up from.

Picking up the framed picture slowly, ignoring the blood soaking his bandana, he gazed at the so-called friends who'd used up those twelve years of his life in some stupid prank that had nearly cost him his life, let alone all those precious years.

They say high school is the best time of your life. They'd experienced the best time of their lives, he had not. Now, he figured, was the time to change that.

"It's payback time."

Jeremy Creek wasn't about to waste the time he had left, and first on his list of priorities: revenge.

---

Whispers followed Clark out of math class and into the teeming hallway. Whispers both good and bad in nature, from girls and boys alike. He'd certainly made an impression on his classmates and teacher, Ms. Wells, who'd exclaimed to herself afterward that she'd never seen anything like the speed at which he could work.

At first Ms. Wells had been somewhat wary of Clark, somewhat quick to put distance between herself and the alien. Thankfully for Clark, only the teachers knew about his true origins; the fuss about his extra-terrestrial background had died down a lot during the five years he'd been missing and presumed dead, and if many people had recognised him, they hid it surprisingly well. However, he was still on the receiving end of more than a few curious stares due to his frightened animal act, something which Lex had said would take a while for Clark to get over. Nobody blamed him, though, being locked up in a cage for a third of your lifetime was no easy task to get over.

Clark hoisted his bag back onto his shoulder and located his locker once more, shooting nervous glances about him to check no one was paying attention to him before tapping the hinge so that it popped open easily.

Chloe Sullivan frowned and nudged her friend in the side as she watched the new guy shove some books into his locker. "Hey Pete."

"What?" He grunted, rolling his eyes as he saw Chloe had come to a stop yet again on their way to English.

"Who's the hottie in plaid?" She nodded her head in the direction of Clark with an appreciative smile, taking in his long legs, broad shoulders and jet black hair. Pete turned to look in the direction she was pointing before shrugging his shoulders in an offhand manner with another roll of the eyes.

"I dunno." He said uninterestedly, looking from Chloe to Clark. "He's not exactly my type." Pete grinned at Chloe teasingly but she ignored him. He let his attention wander down the corridor with a tall, thin cheerleader as he waited for his friend.

"I wonder what his name is?" Chloe said, mostly to herself as Pete was staring after the tall girl, practically drooling. The fact that Chloe hadn't produced a sarcastic jibe on the way Pete was gazing at her with puppy dog eyes was jaw dropping-ly amazing.

"I don't have a clue but I was talking to him earlier." A voice cut in, and Chloe turned to see Lana at her side. Lana smiled apologetically for interrupting.

Chloe looked at her, a slight frown on her face. "Yet you didn't catch his name?" She said disbelievingly, raising an eyebrow.

"He didn't seem to want to speak much." Lana admitted sheepishly. "It was sort of a one-sided conversation."

"Wow. Lana Lang blown off by a guy. There's a first." Chloe snarked. At Lana's hurt look she fell contrite. "Sorry. Cheap shot."

"It's ok." Lana let her eyes drift back to the 'hottie in plaid' as Chloe had dubbed him. "I met him this morning. He's an…" She paused as they watched him jump when someone passed too close to him. "…_interesting_ guy."

"You can say that again." Pete mumbled, looking pointedly at Clark as he shrunk back from the crowd when he started to make his way down the corridor.

"He looks kinda familiar." Chloe commented, and Lana nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I thought that too. Perhaps he was on TV a while ago or something…" Lana suggested, biting her lip in thought.

"Or modeling for Vogue." Chloe added without thinking.

Lana and Pete, who was back on planet earth now that the cheerleader was out of sight, exchanged glances behind her back. Pete looked at Chloe looking at Clark. "Ah-hah ha, someone has a crush!" He sing-songed, nudging Chloe in the ribs with a grin.

Chloe ignored his comment, instead smiling sweetly at him. "So I see 'Ross The Boss' is finally back in the room. Have a good honeymoon with Melanie?" She motioned with her eyes to where the cheerleader had just vanished into a classroom.

Pete's triumphant grin faded and he glowered at her. "Ha ha, Chloe. Very funny."

"Ooh, good comeback!" She retorted, eyes already straying back to Clark.

Lana shifted uncomfortably, no longer a part of the conversation. At that moment the bell went and Lana saw her exit. She didn't like confrontation, and the way Pete and Chloe were going they'd be at each other's throats by lunchtime. "I'll see you guys later."

Pete waved her off, following her with his eyes all the way into room thirteen. Then he looked back at his friend at the lack of the cutting remark. Chloe was still gazing at Clark.

Pete grinned. "Yo Chloe!" He waved a hand in front of her face and she jumped and glared at him.

"What?" She said distantly, her stare already wandering.

Pete laughed, taking her arm to lead her to the next class. "You've got it bad, girl."

"Not…" Chloe replied absently. She snapped back into reality as the second bell rang, warning the few remaining students in the corridor that they should be in class.

She reluctantly followed Pete into English, but her mind was anywhere but on rhyming couplets.

---

The water lapped at the bridge's stone base. A kingfisher sung melodiously from its hiding place along the river bank. A gum wrapper floated regally down the stream and under the bridge, trapped in the light current. Clark sighed and wondered why people felt they had to ruin what had once been a beautiful spot for wildlife.

It was human nature to interfere, to experiment and toy with their victims. Clark knew this only too well.

He leant his elbows on the railing, looking down at the swirling water. It seemed to form patterns, faces, distant dreams and memories being told in the current. He remembered how it felt on his skin, the cold smothering his airways as he fought to get to the surface with his cargo.

He watched the swirling faces in the water and recalled the look of terror on the man's face as the car hit Clark's legs at sixty miles an hour.

_The day was cloudy, dull, boring. Eleven year old Clark had only wandered all the way out to the bridge in Smallville to get away from his father, who hadn't been able to sleep and as a result had drunk himself into a stupor by around midday._

_Wearing only a pair of red shorts, a t-shirt, and a scowl, Clark was the picture of adolescent angst. Except that he hadn't quite reached adolescence yet. He leant his elbows on the railing moodily, looking out across the gold-streaked sky. The only good thing about that day had been the brilliant colour of the sky._

_Clark would remember that exact shade of gold, that moment, for the rest of his life._

_The car had come out of nowhere, the silver blue metal standing stark against the dark road and its huge engine piercing the silence with an angry growl. Clark was so shocked to see the car barreling his way he didn't have time to move out of the way._

_He had been told that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. All that Clark saw before the grill hit his legs and he was forced through the rail and into the inky depths below was the look of terror on the driver's face._

_Clark didn't feel any pain, not at first at any rate. Everything was strangely numb, the roar of the engine was muted to a watery purr, the brilliance in the sky dimmed to a murky ochre, the agony he should have been feeling throughout his body a dull ache._

_For a while his brain was numb too, the shock of being hit by a car and still being alive blocking out any thoughts of rescuing the driver or swimming to safety. Then his survival instinct had kicked in, the adrenaline pumped through his veins and he tore open the roof of the car as easily as if it was a tin can, a laughing matter for Clark Boswell._

_The man was unconscious, his bald pate gleaming eerily in the filtered light. His phone floated up above his head, escaping into the stream as the roof was removed. Grabbing the man under the arms, Clark pulled him up and out, unsnapping the seatbelt with a quick swipe of his hand._

_Surprisingly lightweight in the water, Clark found it easy to swim to the surface and then to shore with the man, gasping air back into his lungs. He waded out onto the rocky sand, laying the man's head gently down on a particularly large stone._

_Panic shot through his chest. The man wasn't breathing. His face was deathly pale, the crimson blood from the small cut on his cheek standing out in a horrible contrast to his white skin._

_Without the slightest hesitation, Clark started pumping his chest then mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He pounded on his chest relentlessly, tears threatening to fall with every second that he didn't get a response. But Clark was nothing if he wasn't determined. He was a fighter. He'd been fighting for the last four and a half years, the four and a half years since his mother had died and his father had taken to the bottle. He hadn't torn the roof off of that car and dragged this man to safety for nothing._

"_Come on! Don't die on me!"  
_

_The man coughed, head jerking up as air rushed suddenly into his water-sodden lungs. Once he'd finished hacking up what looked like half the lake, he set his head back on the stone weakly, wincing slightly at the impact on the hard surface._

_Clark gulped and sighed, staring down at the man who looked to be about seventeen. Water dripped from Clark's hair to the man's face, and he blinked and squinted up at Clark. His eyes travelled to the bridge behind him then back to Clark in wonder._

"_I could have sworn I hit you."  
_

"_If you did… I'd be… I'd be dead." Clark stuttered, surprising even himself with the words. True, his legs felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer made purely from those glowing green rocks to them, his arm muscles were aching from the strain of tearing the roof apart and his head was ringing incessantly, but he was still alive._

_The man coughed again then sat up, feeling the back of his head cautiously. Clark waited nervously as the man's gaze rested on him, his grey eyes piercing, evaluating… he felt like a bug under a microscope._

_At length the man stood up, walking slowly over to the lake. His car was nowhere to be seen. He looked up at the bridge, studying the broken railing. Then he looked back at Clark who had followed at a distance. Eventually a predatory smile spread across his face and he offered his hand to shake._

"_Lex Luthor."  
_

"_Clark Boswell."  
_

_It wasn't long before a car pulled up and the driver loaned Lex his cell phone to call the police. An ambulance turned up as well, standard procedure, even though there was no need for it._

"_Thanks to you, Clark." As Lex had said whilst the paramedics swarmed around him like annoying mosquitoes._

_They'd been there for nearly an hour when the crane finally arrived to retrieve Lex's car. Lex stood on the bank, at the very edge where the water could lap at the toes of his shoes. Clark stood a little way back, shielding his eyes against the sun that flashed off the trunk of the car, water sluicing down its bumper._

_The rear tires emerged, followed by a mangled chassis and finally a twisted hood. Clark felt his heart jump into his throat at the sight. The roof looked like it had had an encounter with a can opener and come off worse. The windshield had a fist-sized hole in it. There were handprints in the metal._

_Lex slowly turned around, his intrigued and determined gaze locking onto Clark's._

_Clark blinked quickly and looked away._

---

Like the rest of the school the Torch office was stiflingly hot, yet unlike the rest of the school every window was shut, the curtains drawn and every computer working at packing out heat.

Chloe paused only to sip at her ice-cold-but-quickly-warming-up milkshake, then dived back into her work, rushing to the nearest computer as it loaded up her latest lead. Hours ago she'd locked herself into the humid little room, telling Pete to go jump off a cliff at his attempts to get inside. Nobody could interrupt her now. This was too important.

She'd wrestled with the morality issues on what she was doing long ago, all through English class and most of biology, actually, and came to the conclusion that what she was doing was perfectly legit. Or so she'd convinced herself in math class.

The other computer bleeped and she dashed back to it, hopping skillfully over a pile of boxes of various shapes, sizes and purposes.

"Score!" Chloe said softly to herself at the information displayed proudly on the screen. After almost three hours of being locked up in this sauna she'd finally gotten what she wanted. More or less.

She'd hacked into the Luthorcorp database to get this far, a dangerous if not extremely difficult task for anyone, let alone a sixteen year old girl. Her heart rising into her throat, she sunk into the chair, leaning forward as the results popped up. She clicked on the second one down, selected 'print' and waited eagerly for her stone age machine to get going.

Whilst she was waiting for the printer to splutter to life she clicked on the first link, quickly scanning the screen then reading it much more slowly to check she'd read correctly. By the time the printer had done its job, Chloe was still absorbed.

On the other computer, the page finished loading, the light dancing and faintly projecting the type on the screen onto the Wall of Weird. There was a bold headline, a lot of small text and a medium sized photo adorning the screen, the front page of a newspaper that had been scanned in.

The headline proclaimed in towering, triumphant type:

"EXTRA TERRESTRIAL LIFE DISCOVERED IN GRANDVILLE!"

**End of Part Two**

**Guppy: Why thank you. I'm surprised you haven't come across a someone-else-finds-Clark AU before, but I'm trying to put an original twist on the plot, so hopefully that's disguising it. ;)**

**chloedouble101: Thanks and sure you can use it, though if you use my exact words then I'd like some credit please! ;)**

**Thanks to htbthomas, Hope Roy, supercellchaser and mcgairman!**

**By the way, I do apologise for the slight Clana that had to be in this chapter. Chlark is coming, I promise. Remember, reviews equal happiness!**


	4. Revelation

**Hey, I'll have you know this is a very fast update. For me, that is. ;)**

****

Mega thank you to htbthomas for beta-ing!

**Diverse**

**Part Three: Revelation**

Rolling fog tumbled across the tombstones, the full moon peeked out from behind its blanket of clouds and the chilly breeze rustled leaves in the undergrowth, doing an uncanny impression of footsteps snapping twigs. The cemetery was like something out of a typical, predictable old horror flick.

Beside a nameless grave, Clark turned and started to walk away. Martha and Jonathan would be worried about him by now. They were so different from his old family, yet so alike in so many ways. The Boswells had owned a farm, too. Rose had lived in Metropolis once upon a time, Daniel in Gotham. They'd met in New York and ended up in Grandville, for a taste of the country life.

Rose had loved it, whilst Daniel had loathed every second he had to change an old tractor tire, or chase the chickens from the vegetable patch, or feed the cows at some ungodly hour of the morning. But, for a while at least, they'd been happy. It was strange how something going so well could turn to something so horrific in only a couple of years.

Rose had fought, even after the doctors told her the cancer was terminal and spreading fast. She'd battled on bravely for an extra month, two weeks and an hour and a half longer than the doctor had given her to be with her beloved husband and adopted son for just that bit longer. It still wasn't enough.

Clark sighed and looked up at the sky. It was pitch black, like a thick blanket had been thrown over the sun so no light could pierce the fabric of woven stars and clouds. Only the moon cast momentary shadows onto the tombstones when it emerged from the fluffy clouds.

A voice suddenly pierced the silence, and it wasn't Clark's.

"Who's there?" The voice was female, and she sounded wary, even afraid of the man she'd found lurking around the graveyard that had become a second home to her.

Clark span round, surprised, then stepped forward into the moonlight. The statue behind him cast stone wings onto his back, making him appear angelic in the dim light. Lana relaxed a little, letting the flowers in her hands drop to her side.

"Hi." She smiled softly, her breath condensing and fogging the air in front of her. Now she knew better than to expect an answer, so not even waiting this time, she walked briskly over to her parents' grave. She gently, almost reverently, laid the wild flowers on the stone, brushing some excess dirt away as she did so. Kneeling there for long minutes, she let herself become lost in her thoughts and memories, forgetting where she was and that she had company.

"Hi." A soft whisper in her ear brought the world back into focus and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

Clark was crouching beside her, well, more like a few metres away, but the point was he'd sought out company without anyone pressuring him into it.

Lana let out a nervous giggle, her heart still beating wildly, and looked back at the grave.

"Hi." She said again, letting a breath out between her teeth. She let the silence settle, contented to become used to each others' company in the noiseless cemetery.

"I don't think you've met my parents." Lana said eventually, gesturing to the gravestone. "This is Laura and Lewis Lang." She glanced up at Clark. "Mom, Dad, this is…"

"Clark Kent," he supplied, and a pleased smile broke out on Lana's face. Now that he was on his own he was starting to open up a lot more.

"As in Martha and Jonathan Kent?" she checked, and received a brief nod. Lana frowned, wondering why she'd never seen Clark around town before, or for that matter, why she hadn't seen Martha or Jonathan for a good six months, at least not for more than a passing 'hello' or 'goodbye.' She didn't press him for details.

Lana cast about for something to say; it was obvious he was no conversation opener. "You must think I'm weird. Conversing with dead people."

She laughed condescendingly at herself, a little embarrassed. Nobody had seen her talking with her parents before, not even Nell; she felt it was a private matter, but somehow she didn't feel that it was wrong to talk to Clark about it. He had a natural trustworthiness about him, like she could tell him the biggest secret in the world and he'd keep it for her.

"You're not weird, Lana. Just lonely." He said in a matter-of-fact way. After all, what did she know about weird?

Lana stared at him, lines creasing her forehead. She hadn't been expecting that answer.

At her look he explained. "I've been there."

His voice was heavy, weighted with memories from the past. Lana didn't know what demons haunted his dreams at night but she felt sure they couldn't compare to hers, losing her parents at only three years old. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Swallowing, she looked back at the stone. Lana stared at it for a few seconds, considering his words and how they'd hit home. It couldn't be true, she had Whitney, and Nell, and all her popular cheerleading friends… She'd won all her cheerleading contests in the past and she would in the future, just like she'd be crowned Homecoming Queen again and again, and again… monotonous, predictable… that was what Nell and her friends and Whitney were… Clark, on the other hand… mysterious, unconventional, intriguing…She shook her head and those thoughts out of her mind, blinking back tears.

"No. You _are_ there." She said, deciding that if he could be blunt, she could too.

There was no reply, and when she looked back up he was nowhere in sight, only the mist swirling where he'd made his exit. There was no sound, only the filtered moonlight flickering on the frostbitten ground. Silently, she stood up, gazing at the place he'd disappeared and leaving Lana to ponder who was truly alone.

---

Piercing green eyes with a purpose soon picked out their target. Chloe watched Clark enter room eight, then, shrugging Pete's arm off of hers, followed with quick, intent steps. She heard Pete call after her but paid him about the same amount of attention as she usually did, zilch.

"Chloe! Chloe what are you doing!" Pete jogged to catch up with her, placing a restraining hand on her arm. Chloe paused for only a split second to pry her friend's fingers off her.

"I'm going to meet the new guy," she stated simply.

Pete rolled his eyes and darted in front of her, blocking her path. "But he's in a different class right now! Mr. Geldner's class!" He threw his hands up in the air for emphasis.

"So?" Chloe said dodging around him and laying her hand on the door handle.

"_Sooo_," Pete began with exaggerated slowness, dragging out the word as if talking to a five year old. "Mr. Geldner is only the evilest teacher in all of the USA, and he's heading this way!"

Chloe flashed him an unconcerned grin. "I'd better be quick then." With that she darted through the door and out of sight, closing the door smartly in Pete's dumbstruck face.

Glancing around, her sharp eyes quickly picked out the new kid hovering uncertainly by the window, as if wishing he could jump out of said window and disappear forever from the noisy classroom and his raucous fellow pupils forever.

Fixing a friendly smile to her face and taking a deep calming breath, she straightened her skirt and approached him slowly, having already witnessed his reaction to sudden movements and loud noises.

"Hey." She decided to go for casually interested. Just the friendly stranger greeting the new kid. Right.

He still jumped about a mile and backed off from her as if she was a venomous cobra. Not that a venomous cobra could hurt him…

She told her inner voice to shut up and focus. "I'm Chloe Sullivan, editor of the Torch." She didn't bother with trying to shake his hand or anything, she knew from reading the reports what his response to that would be.

He looked at her from nervous eyes, wariness and fear written all over his features, but strangely, Chloe couldn't detect a hint of hostility. The files she'd found described him as potentially dangerous, a reason why the scientists had had to keep him under lock and key with the constant threat of meteor rocks to subdue him, but the Clark she was looking at now didn't seem dangerous at all. In fact, quite the opposite. His long fringe fell into his clear greyish eyes when he backed away from her, and the way he bit his bottom lip nervously was positively cute. Not to mention those sparkling white teeth, tanned complexion and chiseled cheek bones…

Then he spoke in a quiet, low voice. "Do… do you… want something?"

_Yes. Dear God yes._

Chloe cleared her throat, jerked herself out of her momentary fantasy which involved Clark and lots of chocolate, and forced a smile. A friendly smile only. Nothing more.

"Um… yes, actually… I do want something from you…"

His eyes instantly clouded, the clear, honest expression darkening to fear and mistrust. In an instant, those words had sent him back to his own private hell, a place nobody could save him from. Nobody could save him from his own memories.

"_Clark, I want something else from you today…"_

"…_Just a test, a new test…"_

"…_We haven't tried this before so we'll start with a low dosage, and raise the level of meteor rock in the solution as we go along…"_

"… _Now, don't panic, there's nothing to worry about, this won't hurt…"_

"Your name."

"Huh?" Clark snapped back to reality, eyes focusing on the small blond before him. The general noise form the chatter in the background returned.

"What's your name?" Chloe repeated, a little slower this time. She was still staring at him oddly.

"C-Clark. Clark Kent." He spat out quickly, hoping now that she'd got his name she'd leave him alone. He was getting an odd feeling around this girl, for some reason he didn't feel like he had to close up his thoughts, and that was dangerous. It was dangerous to let people know what he was thinking, because knowledge was power, power they'd use over him.

She nodded, oblivious to his split second thought process, and smiled her appreciation and finally turned to leave, but to Clark's surprise he found himself wishing she'd stayed with him longer. As soon as the thought crossed his mind he dismissed it, though apparently Chloe felt the same way. She paused just before the door, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Hey Clark, if you need somewhere to hang out at lunch break, I'm always at The Torch." Without waiting for an answer, and with a smile and a short wave, Chloe ducked out the door, just before Mr. Geldner stormed in, looking as usual, as though the world had done something to mortally offend him.

He bellowed for the class to take their seats and Clark did so hastily, wincing a little at the volume of his voice.

Outside the classroom, Chloe leant her head back on the cool wall, feeling her heart slow from a wild dance around her chest to a sedate beat.

After a while, she opened her eyes and set off down the deserted hallway to her next class, still playing through the scenario in her head.

"Clark Kent." She whispered. For some reason, the words brought a secret smile to her face.

---

Tapping away on her keyboard like a woman possessed, Chloe didn't notice the door swing open with a near-silent 'click.' She was too intent on writing out what she'd found into ordered notes, ready to write the biggest article since five years ago when 'extra-terrestrial life' had been discovered in the first place. No, this story wasn't as huge as that, second time around wasn't so important, but it'd still be the biggest break Chloe would ever get writing for a High school newspaper, and she knew it.

She also knew she was feeling guilty for a reason, and that reason was that she knew, not only from the articles she'd dug up on his life but also meeting Clark Kent that morning, that he was a good person. She didn't want to tear down a good person, but then she'd never been a good judge of character… so perhaps she was wrong about his intentions? What if he was planning an invasion, planning to take over the world, turn humanity over to slavery…? Deep down she knew she was being unrealistic, and so perhaps this inner battle with herself was why she didn't notice someone enter the room so stealthily.

"BOO!" A shout and a hand on her shoulder alerted to the intruder's presence and she leapt out of her seat, heart hammering even more wildly than when she'd met Clark that morning.

"Pete!" Chloe sagged back against the chair, closing her eyes and putting a hand against her chest as if to still her racing heart. Pete, grinning, leaned over and quickly scanned over what was on her screen while her back was turned.

He received a whack on the arm in exchange, as Chloe speedily clicked to a different screen, but it was too late.

Pete's face had drained of colour and he turned his shocked gaze on her.

"Chloe," he choked, "What the HELL was that?" He grasped for the nearest chair and sunk weakly down onto it. Chloe was not pleased.

She took a deep breath, a frown forming on her forehead and began, "I was going to tell you - really I was going to tell you about Clark-"

"What about Clark?" A voice cut in and Chloe and Pete turned as one to see Lana standing in the doorway, a brown paper bag in her hand and a frown on her face.

Chloe sighed, aggravated, and threw her hands up in the air, turning back to her computer and clicking onto what she'd been doing before she'd been interrupted. She closed the program and bought up another, a web-page of information that she could reel off easily to her friends.

"Why not just send the whole school in?" She grumbled as she did so. "It'd be a lot faster and easier than researching all this stuff only to be interrupted and distracted." When she looked back up, Pete was once more reading over her shoulder and Lana had taken his place on the couch with a interestedly curious expression on her face.

"Well?" Lana prompted as if on cue. "Are you going to tell us?"

Chloe sighed sadly and nodded, looking down and biting her lip in a mixture of unwillingness and consternation.

"Ok. If I'm going to do this I'm going to do this properly." She turned her chair around, placing her self at the side so she could look at both Pete and Lana at the same time.

"Clark Kent isn't Clark Kent at all," Chloe began, taking another deep breath. Then she smiled ruefully at Lana's surprised look. "Dramatic opening statement, I know. His real name is, or rather was, Clark Boswell-"

"More like Roswell," Pete chipped in, glancing up from his reading momentarily to lighten the mood and darken Chloe's. She shot him a glare as he hummed the X-Files theme, waving his hands around eerily.

Lana glanced from Chloe to Pete as if searching for an explanation that was not forthcoming.

"As I was saying," Chloe said, loudly, with a pointed look in Pete's direction. He quickly sobered and quieted. "Clark was raised by the Boswells on the very outskirts of Grandville after they-"

"Wait a minute- he's an alien?" Chloe was again interrupted by Lana, whose normally tanned skin had faded to a sickly sort of pale cream in a amazing amount of time. "_The_ Clark Boswell? _The_ Clark Boswell that was supposed to have died years ago?"

"Well, yeah…" Chloe answered. "I talked to him this morning."

Lana stared into space for a few seconds, her face emotionless, then said abruptly. "You talked to him this morning. How long have you known he's a freak?"

"Since yesterday," Chloe said slowly, not sure she liked where Lana was going with this. "And he's not a fr-"

"You knew he's from another planet and yet you actually purposefully went to meet him?" Her voice was rising in pitch as she spoke to Chloe, who was just as shocked at Lana's reaction. Pete finally looked up at the two, pulled away from his reading by their raised voices.

"Is it just me, or did it get cold in here?" He asked, trying to elicit a friendly response with humour. Both girls promptly ignored him and Chloe shook her head in confusion.

"Am I missing something here? Because I distinctly remember you telling me he was hot not so long ago." She told Lana, a sharp, sarcastic edge to her voice.

Lana shook her head, a frown now twisting her otherwise flawless features. She was lost for words at Chloe's comment, knowing that it was one hundred percent accurate and hating herself for it.

"I can't believe you, Chloe!" She snapped eventually, springing to her feet and grabbing her coat as tears threatened to overwhelm her.

Pete and Chloe watched in shocked silence as she stormed from the office, slamming the door uncharacteristically behind her. Chloe looked helplessly to Pete for advice or some form of comfort. Tears were pricking at her own eyes. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Uh… she sounded angry." Pete offered.

At that Chloe gave a dry laugh, eliciting a small embarrassed smile from Pete, but his smile abruptly switched to a frown as her laugh switched to a sob. She shook her head, waving him away as he stepped forward.

"You have… a knack… for understating… things." She said, trying to grin through her tears.

She hated what she was doing to Clark. It was selfish and thoughtless and… and Lana was going to hurt him as well. He didn't deserve that much pain.

She waited somewhat impatiently through Pete's attempts to cheer her up, telling her cheesy jokes and giving her rather clumsy and awkward hugs before he left an hour later at her insistence that she was fine.

The very second the door clicked shut behind him, she hurried back to her computer, bringing up the notes for her expose on Clark. She hesitated for only a few seconds, biting her lip with worry, then resolutely hit the delete button.

Ten minutes later she brought up the Recycle Bin and copied its entire contents back onto her hard drive.

---

Clark's last class of the day with Mr. Geldner had been particularly grueling. Whereas most of his other teachers couldn't help but look in his direction every so often, as if checking to make sure he hadn't sprouted antenna in the time their backs had been turned, Mr. Geldner had purposefully picked on him for practically every question.

He wasn't the only one to notice, either - at the end of class he'd received many looks of sympathy and a couple of pats on the back as the students flooded out into the corridor. Enduring the human contact had been easier than he'd thought possible, though that was about the only good thing that came from having History with a teacher like Mr. Geldner.

Sighing, he shook the incident from his mind, and headed for his locker. Before he could shut the door and lock it, a hand slammed it shut for him with startling speed.

Clark jumped back, following the arm all the way up to its owner's face, the face of Josh Blake, who he'd been unfortunate enough to meet earlier. Apparently the resident school bully hadn't given up on his latest victim.

Blake stepped forward, therefore forcing Clark to step back by his mere presence. As ever, his loyal friends, or more appropriately servants, were at his side, the typical cruel grin on their dumb faces.

The crowd continued to swarm past him, oblivious and uncaring at his situation. Blake stepped to the side, around to the back of Clark, so that Clark had to back up against the locker to avoid touching him. The other two guys stepped in and blocked his escape route as Blake grinned.

"Hey there," he said, almost pleasantly, as if they were chatting over a cup of coffee. When Clark didn't reply he continued, "I don't think we quite finished our… conversation… last time."

One of the bullies cracked his knuckles in a characteristic, menacing bully way. Clark would have laughed if his mind hadn't been frozen with terror from thoughts of days gone by. There was something reminiscent of Daniel Boswell in Josh Blake's threatening stance, the sneer playing around his thin lips, although his breath did not reek of alcohol as Clark's father's usually had. Clark knew though, without any trace of a doubt, that out of school, Blake wouldn't think twice about tossing back a couple of cans of beer.

Still Clark kept his silence, hoping against hope that someone would intervene, somebody, anybody, so that he wouldn't have to live through his nightmare again. He'd been keeping his memories locked up inside of his mind, forcing back the nightmares into his subconscious so that he wouldn't have to face his fear. If someone forced him to go through the same torture again, he didn't know if he could stop the memories from overwhelming him.

"How's about we show you what respect means to us?"

Clark's eyes darted about, looking for help, trying desperately not to make eye contact with his tormentors. Across the room, he saw the girl who'd helped him earlier, Lana Lang, and hope blossomed in his stomach. She would help him, if only he could get her to notice him…

Blake did that for him. Impatient with Clark's silence, he shoved him roughly back against the locker, and the back of Clark's head rattled the metal lockers loudly.

Forced back the image of his father slamming his head against a cupboard door, Clark caught Lana's eye over Blake's shoulder. He was distantly surprised to see she was crying.

Frozen in place, she stared Clark dead in the eye for several seconds. Clark waited, pleading with her silently to say something; they'd stop for her, just like they had earlier. Instead of the fiery compassion for her fellow human being that he'd seen in her eyes only the day before, he was met with a flash of cold disgust, disgust aimed not at the bullies, but at himself.

Clark's blood ran cold, his chest tightened and for an eternal second the face of Lionel Luthor flashed across his mind's eye… cold, indifferent… disgusted at the alien creature he'd captured.

And without so much as a bat of an eyelid, Lana spun on her heel and walked briskly away, not once glancing back at Clark. He watched her until she was out of sight, the hope in the pit of his stomach fading until it was finally extinguished as the crowd obscured her turned back.

He was left to deal with the consequences of her actions alone.

**End of Part Three**

**Wow there wasn't even space for a proper flashback in this chapter. Although Lana did redeem herself. ;)**

**Well review responses are now not allowed in stories, so if you had any questions or quirky comments I'll reply via the new 'review reply' feature. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, every single one is appreciated. :D**

**P.S: Isn't quirky such an interesting word? I need to use that word in my story somehow...**


	5. Evolution

**By the way, this story requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief... in other words parts of it may not be too realistic but then neither are super powered aliens. ;) I'll explain when I have time.**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for beta-ing!**

**Diverse**

**Part Four: Evolution**

Raised voices were not a common occurrence in the Kent household, but lately it was becoming less rare to witness Martha and Jonathan 'discussing' things loudly with each other. Clark hated it when they fought. Even worse, he hated it even more when he knew they were arguing about him. Despite their protests that everything was fine, Clark knew 'fine' didn't consist of their conversation abruptly ending when he entered the room, and continuing in louder tones as soon as he left it.

Martha watched Clark warily as he forced a smile and quickly headed out the door to complete his morning chores, before rounding on her husband. "Jonathan, he's hiding something, I know he is-"

"He'll talk to us when he feels he's ready."

"But what if he goes and does something stupid before then?"

"Like what?"

"Like… Oh, I don't know, Jonathan!"

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Martha jumped at the knock on the door and whipped around to find Lex outside. Jonathan breathed a sigh that told of both his relief and frustration.

"Uh, no, Lex, come on in." He said wearily, shooting Martha a Look which told her he'd continue their conversation later.

Lex, however, wasn't fooled. "Is everything alright?"

Martha promptly ignored this unspoken transaction between herself and her husband and said in a matter of fact way, "It's Clark."

"Ah." Lex replied, the tone put into that one word saying it all. Jonathan frowned.

"He's been much more distant lately… more than usual, I mean, and well, I'm worried." She threw a look over her shoulder at her husband to draw him into the conversation.

Lex surveyed them for a moment, weighing up the situation, before stating, "I told you he'd be hard work. You're not… thinking about giving him up?" He voiced his suspicions cautiously, hoping against hope that he was wrong.

He'd never found himself hoping he was wrong before.

"Oh, no!" Martha jumped in immediately to lay his fears to rest, horror creeping over her features as Jonathan's frown deepened and he moved to stand beside his wife in agreement.

"No, it's nothing like that, Lex," he said calmly, but with a sigh.

"We just wondered if you could perhaps… talk to him?" Martha added hopefully. Jonathan's surprised glance at his wife told Lex they hadn't agreed on that beforehand.

Still, Martha was looking at him with such hope he couldn't say no. "Please, Lex, he'll talk to you, you're the one that got him out of there…"

Lex's jaw tightened and he looked away. Yes, he'd gotten Clark out of that hellhole. He'd also put him in there in the first place. What kind of friend betrays another's trust like that? He owed Clark, big time.

"I'm not promising anything." He relented, trying not to get their hopes up. "He doesn't trust me as he used to," he added quietly, but still Martha was beaming up at Jonathan like she'd won the lottery and he was smiling hesitantly back for her benefit. Lex sighed with the realisation that they'd already put their hope in him, but this time he was going to do his best to make sure he didn't let them down.

---

Clark tried his best to focus on the task at hand and not the voices floating through the kitchen window, but it wasn't easy. A third voice had joined in shortly after he'd departed, and though the volume of those voices had quieted considerably; Clark still caught snippets of conversation.

He savagely dug the pitchfork into the hay as if spearing an invisible enemy and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. Aim, thrust, throw. Aim, thrust, throw. Aim-

"I didn't know shoveling manure could be so fascinating."

Ordinarily Clark would have replied with something akin to 'You'd be surprised,' perhaps with a cheeky grin for a good measure. Instead Lex received a startled deer-in-the-headlights stare, followed by a submissive duck of the head before Clark went back to work a little less dreamily.

Lex suppressed his sigh, shoving his hands deep into his expensive pockets and strolling lazily closer to his oldest friend. He ignored the surreptitious but calculating glance from beneath Clark's dark eyebrows and leaned casually against a stable door. Casual. Non-threatening. Nothing to worry about. Lex was used to schooling his posture and expression into a blank mask. If he hadn't learned to conceal his true thoughts and emotions he suspected he'd have been booted out of house and home by dear old Dad long before.

"Need a hand?" Lex asked, seconds later. Clark glanced up again.

"I'm just about finished, actually." He gave Lex a hesitant smile, becoming used to his presence, and with that dug back into his work.

"Ah. Then the least you could do is take me up on my offer of a ride to school."

Clark paused again, then straightened, brushing the last wisps of hay into the heap as he considered. Lex waited much too patiently as Clark leaned the fork against the wall, then surveyed his rich friend with an unwavering gaze.

"Did my parents put you up to this?" He eventually said shrewdly, eyes narrowing in a look of consternation that Lex hadn't seen on his friend for a good five years.

For his part, Lex didn't miss a beat at the unusual question from Clark and hid his surprise at the accusation with practised ease. "No, I concocted this deviously brilliant plan all by myself." He let Clark know he was kidding by flashing him an impeccably timed smirk at the end of that statement.

Clark glanced away with a sheepish half-smile and followed Lex out to his car, an iron-grey Porsche this morning, in thoughtful silence.

They were halfway to school when Lex next spoke, carrying on the conversation as if no time had elapsed. "They are worried about you, though."

Clark threw Lex a sharp sideways glance but said nothing. When Lex looked back, Clark was staring stonily ahead at the road.

"I'm no psychiatrist, but I've been told my listening skills are unrivalled." Lex decided to let that settle for a while as Clark weighed his options. Lex could almost hear the cogs clanking into place in his head.

Clark finally looked over and said, "Is that supposed to be a hint?"

Lex simply smiled quietly, but it quickly faded. He looked back to catch Clark's eye.

"Seriously Clark, what's bothering you?"

Clark's smile faded much more rapidly than Lex's and he pulled his gaze away, out to the green fields flying by. He didn't speak for the remainder of the journey, and Lex didn't ask. He just pulled smoothly over to the curb outside Smallville High and cut the engine.

Clark was still staring out the window, head turned away. Lex was just about to break the silence with a reminder that he'd be late for school if he didn't get a move on when Clark spoke. His voice was soft, wistful, almost regretful.

"Have you ever been hurt for no other reason than because of who you are?"

Lex knew better than to answer, he could tell he had more to say. Clark finally looked him squarely in the eye, though imprinted on the insides of his retinas all he saw was the disgust and rejection in Lana's eyes, an unknowing mimicry of his father from over seven years ago…

_The room was dark, silent, the stifling air oppressive and punctured only by the occasional flicker of the TV screen and raucous laughter. Clark left his father to his late night film gladly, instead retreating upstairs to his mother's room._

_Rose had been diagnosed with bone cancer just two weeks ago, and her husband Daniel was taking it hard. Rose had quietly told five year old Clark that he was in denial, and had explained patiently to him what that word and its consequences meant. She'd said that later he'd deal with it and come to accept it, but for the moment they'd both have to deal with and accept his reversion to teenage habits such as getting completely smashed and watching adult movies throughout the night._

_Clark pushed the door open carefully, not wanting to wake his weakening mother from what little sleep she could glean from restless nights. The room was dark in here as well, though only the soft breathing of deep sleep accompanied the flower-scented silence._

_He padded barefoot over to the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor, content to simply watch his mother sleep. After a while, when it became clear Rose was fast asleep, Clark turned his head to gaze around the small bedroom. The walls were pale pink, the carpet a deeper shade of magenta, the dresser and wardrobe a buttery cream._

_A vase sat on the bedside table, devoid of water and containing two roses, one pink, the other cream, as Clark had said happily when he'd presented them to his mother, to match her bedroom and her name. Rose had smiled a tired smile, but one telling of her pride in her little boy, before Clark had darted off to put the flowers in water for her and returned a split second later with most of said water slopped down his front._

_Daniel had scolded him sharply for the spillage and casual use of his abilities, and in the ensuing argument between husband and wife, Clark had slipped away, tears now soaking his t-shirt. The vase which needed refilling had promptly been forgotten about._

_This time, Clark vowed not to do anything wrong. He stood and carefully stretched up to grasp the glass vase between two small but very strong hands. He laid the roses on the floor temporarily and walked slowly to the bathroom, returning a good deal longer than a split second later with the vase full to the top._

_After making sure he hadn't spilled a drop of water, he replaced the vase in its previous position and dropped the flowers in. The added volume caused the already brimming vase to overflow, and water splashed across the table and onto the bed. Rose awoke with a loud yelp as cold water was dashed across her face and downstairs the TV was muted. Clark cringed and froze as he heard Daniel yell and start up the stairs as Rose wearily pushed herself into a sitting position, rubbing the sleep from her eyes._

_Daniel appeared in the doorway, filling the space remarkably for someone so short, yet his frame still towered over little Clark's shaking one. Over the last couple of weeks his normally irritable temper had become volatile. _

_Daniel took one look from Clark to the vase to Rose, and opened his mouth angrily. The ensuing argument was one of the worst ever to be heard in the Boswell household._

Beside him, Lex stirred, and Clark focused on the present with some difficulty, shoving the memory into the deepest crevice of his mind that he could find.

"Yes," was Lex's quiet reply. "Yes. Everyday. Everyday, some unknown face looks at me with hatred because of who I am." His voice was incredibly bitter, laced with remorse.

Clark hesitated. He'd never asked anything so probing in all his life, but he needed to know. "And who are you?"

Lex forced a half-hearted chuckle in an attempt to lighten the mood and take some of the pressure off him. It fell flat as Clark's serious expression didn't lighten one bit.

Lex grew sober quickly, looking away from Clark's penetrating gaze as he spoke the words he'd been trying to deny for most of his early life. He'd given up denying it when he'd sold Clark to his father, or was it his soul to the devil? He didn't know anymore, but the one thing he did know was that he was going to spend the rest of his life compensating for that moment of madness which had led him to trust his father and betray a friend who had grown to become something of a brother.

"I like to think I'm my own person, but when it comes down to it, I'm still my father's son."

Clark's silence after that statement told him just how much ground they'd lost in that one moment of madness.

---

Mechanical whirrs, the ticking of a clock and sporadic cursing covered his tracks.

The man didn't hear a thing until Jeremy was in position. Practically within striking distance, he waited, watching the man much as a puma would watch its prey. Though Jeremy's body was not tense, he was ready to spring like a predator. His body language oozed casual confidence, so perhaps there was something cat-like in his languid pose.

It didn't take long for the man to notice his presence. Not as long as Jeremy would have liked. He wanted this moment to last, to stretch on as long as his own pain had lasted. Twelve seconds of pain for twelve years of complete, utter agony. There was no comparison.

The man was looking at him now, wiping his hands on an oily rag, blissfully unaware of what was to come. "Jeez, kid. You scared the crap out of me!"

Kid. Such a_… tasteless…_ term for someone only a year the man's junior, no matter how young his physical body appeared. Jeremy let some of his anticipation creep out onto his face in the form of a small, superior smirk that definitely didn't belong on just a kid's face.

The man was squinting at him now, striding lazily up to him. "Don't I know you? You look like that scarecrow kid. Where the hell you been?"

'_You of all people should know. You should be begging at my feet, pleading forgiveness…'_ Jeremy bit back the instinctive response, and settled for widening his smirk in an aggravatingly arrogant fashion.

The man was frowning now, but grinning patronisingly at the same time. "Hey, freakazoid. Wake up."

He reached out a disgustingly oily hand to poke Jeremy sharply in the chest. It was funny to see how the thirty-something year old man still hadn't outgrown his I'm-better-than-everyone-star-of-the football-team school days, Jeremy mused idly as the man soared back to knock over a metal table full of odd bits of machinery with a satisfying crash. The electricity was still arcing over his body delightfully when he pushed himself up.

The man scrambled backwards, the arrogant jocularity shoved aside by shock and terror. "That was twelve years ago, man. It was just a game. What do you want?"

Jeremy's eerie smirk returned in full force. Of all the things to say, he'd said exactly what Jeremy had hoped he'd say in his dreams. And in his dreams, he'd savour the moment and then reply as if the answer was obvious:

"To play."

---

The only bad thing about being freakishly tall when you wanted to blend in was that you were kind of hard to miss.

Clark had encountered this problem increasingly ever since he'd started Smallville High and met a few of its less-than-pleasant students, but today it was even more important unusual that he stay inconspicuous. Otherwise, Lana would spot him, and Lana knew his secret, and that was not good. Not good at all.

So, he skulked down the row of lockers, staring at the floor and hunching his broad shoulders to try to become shorter. But it seemed fate, or some malevolent higher power that wanted to see Clark Kent's fragile heart stamped on, had other ideas.

"Clark! Hey, CLARK!"

Clark's head shot up in unison with about a dozen other students' and… Lana's. He only met her eyes for a millisecond, but even that length of time was too long for Clark to bear the rejection written across her closed face.

Unpleasant tension held the air as they stared, until a guy wearing a Crows jacket behind Lana scowled and wrapped a protective arm around her, claiming her as his. Clark dragged his gaze away immediately, instead focusing on the small blonde he'd met the day before and ignoring the smaller bolt of pain shooting through his heart. The malevolent higher power had won, and was free to reap the benefits.

Chloe was oblivious to all of this as she bounced up to Clark, careful to stop a good few metres away to give him ample personal space. If her back hadn't been to Lana and her boyfriend, she would have seen Whitney shoot Clark another venomous scowl then steer his girlfriend forcefully away to safety.

As it was, Chloe smiled up at Clark with reams of paper in her hands and excitement in her eyes.

"Hi, Clark," she repeated, a lot more quietly now that he was close enough to hear.

As usual, she hadn't expected a reply so wasn't surprised when one didn't come, though this time the reason was not one of fear. Clark's thoughts were preoccupied elsewhere.

"… so I was wondering if you'd like that? I mean, you haven't participated in any extra curricular events so-"

Chloe's chipper and hopeful voice brought him back to the present.

"Wait, how do you know I haven't participated in any extra curricular events?" The response was automatic, something he would have questioned years ago perhaps, when all was right with the world, but not now.

Chloe seemed taken aback for a second and Clark instantly wanted to retract the words.

"I just figured…" She said vaguely, then plunged ahead before he had time to contemplate her answer. "So do you want to or not? We could really use the help at the moment, the Torch has kinda been running low on staff lately. Something about a mad editor." She added as an afterthought, her eyes twinkled mischievously as she smiled. "I can't imagine why."

Clark stared at her for a few seconds, eyes narrowed unconsciously as he weighed her and tried to take in the rush of words. She seemed very nervous, he noted, reading the signs. The panic to get her words out, the stiff posture, the anxious bite of her lip as she awaited his answer. He'd become used to working out how people were feeling from their body language. Back at the lab in Metropolis it had given him some warning of what was about to come. Sometimes if the scientist was in a bad mood he'd take it out on Clark, if he was in a good mood he might be a bit more lenient.

Still, there was that innocently hopeful smile on her face. Not the smile of someone with a sinister ulterior motive. Perhaps she was naturally shy? But no, that didn't fit, he'd seen her around the corridors on occasion and she'd been positively outspoken then. Besides, she was the editor of the school paper. A hard-bitten reporter.

"Ok." He didn't know why he'd agreed, just that it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Chloe needed help, he provided it. He smiled a little self consciously as her whole demeanour lit up and she relaxed. Something about her just spoke of trustworthiness, understanding. Or perhaps he'd banged his head harder than he thought this morning when he forgot to duck through the doorframe.

"Ok," Chloe repeated, her soft smile widening. For another second they stared into each other's eyes, until Chloe jumped and cleared her throat. "Well… if you have some spare time now I'll show you around the Torch… then we can get to work." She turned and carried on chattering away happily as she walked, Clark trailing a little way behind her.

She glanced back briefly to make sure he was listening. "This is just a preliminary article, you understand, sort of a test-"

Cutting off abruptly as Clark's easy going smile shrank into nothing and he stood stock still, Chloe desperately berated herself for letting such a careless mistake slip out. Clark's heart rate had sped up, his eyes were darting in full panic mode around the room. His whole posture spoke of fear.

Chloe slid up to him slowly and quietly. "Clark?" She whispered softly.

His eyes snapped back to hers and she noted with some apprehension that he was shaking. People had started to notice the statue partly blocking the corridor.

"Come on, let's get you out of here." She said under her breath, gently but firmly taking his arm to lead him away. At the contact he jumped and hissed as if he'd been burned. Chloe jerked her hand away quickly, and he looked around for a second as if in confusion before taking the initiative and leading the way to the side of the corridor.

Chloe followed him quickly. "You ok?"

He gulped, once more flicking nervous eyes about him and nodded. Chloe could tell he didn't want to talk about it and didn't press him, instead putting a bright smile on for his benefit and steering the topic back to safer waters.

"So this first article we'll be working on, there was a guy hanging around the ambulance yesterday when it carted off some girl who'd been electrocuted - the computer's over there, you know how to use a computer, right? Find out everything you can about that accident, I'm going to dig up some info on the previous one so we can compare notes afterwards, ok?" Chloe finished her sentence all in one breath then waited expectantly as Clark reeled from the speed of it.

"I guess. Then… then we'll write it up?" He agreed a second later, and Chloe smiled appreciatively. She needed someone who could interpret her instructions and follow them with their own fresh style.

"Yes, next edition's in about three hours. We'll have to work quickly, I've got to cover the gym mats story as well 'cause Pete hasn't turned up…" She turned to dark mutterings about the absence of Pete as she switched on her computer and Clark followed suit, suppressing a smile.

Clark was surprised to find that he could work well with Chloe - there was something about her chirpy-eternally-busy nature that put him at ease. She took up the role of commentator and kept up a constant chatter that was so different from the aching silence he'd known in the lab that he found he didn't even mind her coming too close to him when she read over his shoulder. Chloe was leaning over Clark on one such occasion to look at his computer screen when the door banged open loudly and Clark jumped. Chloe pulled back quickly and the pair turned to face the newcomer.

"Hi there, who are you? Did you want to apply for a position at the Torch, because I hear there's a spot open." Chloe said, her voice loaded with sarcasm.

Pete just shook his head, sporting an enormous grin, and dumped his bag on the floor. "Ha-ha, Chloe." He replied with a roll of his eyes. Pete strode further into the room, nodding to Clark as he passed him. "Hey, Clark. So Chloe's sucked you into the reporting world already? Nice one."

He nudged Chloe with an elbow as he passed her, obviously longing to wink suggestively. Clark smiled nervously.

"Well if a certain staff member had shown up on time I wouldn't have had to." Chloe shot back, waving some sheets of paper about for emphasis. "Where _were_ you?"

"Only chatting up the hottest girl in school." Pete answered, the enormous

goofy grin surfacing again. He flopped into the nearest chair and started up a computer.

Chloe decided the battle to get through to Pete wasn't worth fighting, left it at a derisive snort and went back to her computer. Clark looked from Chloe to Pete anxiously, not quite sure if they were having a real argument or only 'joking around', as someone had told him they did all the time. Neither Pete nor Chloe seemed to notice his attention.

"Bingo!" Chloe suddenly exclaimed, and Clark was grateful they also didn't notice that he'd leapt about a foot off his chair.

"What is it?" Pete asked, walking around to stand next to Chloe to look at the pictures she'd printed off. After some deliberation and encouragement from Chloe, Clark followed.

"The guy's name is Jeremy Creek. But get this: here's a picture of him taken an hour ago, and this is a picture taken twelve years ago."

---

Silent yet welcoming, the Torch office showed no signs of life other the hum of the heating system shutting down. The curtains were drawn, the lights off, two sure signs that Sullivan had gone home for the night.

The door was shut quickly after it had been opened to admit two people, though not with much thought for the noise it would make as the hinges creaked shut.

The boy in front hissed at his companion to keep quiet, then reached round to prod him in the back to make him get a move on.

"Go on." He whispered lowly, and the other boy nodded and made his way through all the hazardous junk that cluttered the floor and various desks. His companion took his chances on a different route, each rifling through the desks one by one until one boy straightened up triumphantly with the article in his hands. He turned to his friend, who appeared to have given up on searching for the past few minutes, instead poring over some screwed up and blackened piece of paper in a bin of all places.

"Hey, Mickey! I got the article on the cheating-"

Mickey whirled around to make frantic shushing motions at his friend. "Would ya shut up Scott!"

Scott instantly shut up, and Mickey's face darkened. He sighed quietly and motioned for Scott to join him.

"Come 'ere. Look what I found."

Scott promptly forgot to step over the items on the floor and stubbed his toe on a chair leg.

"Shhh!" Mickey hissed again.

Scott looked suitably contrite, and came to peer over his shoulder at the file.

"My God…" His eyes widened after he read the first few lines, and he stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over an open desk drawer. "Is that… is that true?"

Mickey surveyed him for a critical second, debating whether punching him was worth the trouble it would cause. He eventually shook his head in irritation, and whispered fiercely "Of course it's true! Why would Sullivan go reporting something that wasn't true?"

Scott shrugged his broad shoulders apologetically. "I dunno. So what we gonna do about it?"

"We," Mickey announced, walking briskly for the photocopier, "are going to have some fun with this information."

He switched the machine on, laid the papers out neatly on the glass, closed the lid, and pressed print with a smug grin.

**End of Part Four**

**Sorry but I don't have time to reply to reviews right now, back later! Thanks everyone!**


	6. Deprecation

**Hey, sorry this update's a bit later than usual, my excuse is that I've been snooping around the art galleries in London! It was amazing:D**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for beta-ing! **

**Diverse**

**Part Five: Deprecation**

No sound other then the occasional slam of a locker permeated the hallway. The school was unusually devoid of students, though perhaps that could be accounted for by the early hour. Still, Clark had no doubt that he would find Chloe busily holed away in the Torch office, working on her latest big story.

Trying his best to ignore a few sniggers in his direction from a group of four or five boys wearing matching Crows jackets, Clark let them pass through the doorway before stepping through in the opposite direction.

"Was that him?"

"Course it was, looked like 'im didn't it?"

"Wonder what he'll do…"

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Their comments drifted after him as he set foot in the main corridor of the school. The revving of their car engine was cut off as the door drifted closed behind Clark.

The hallway was dark and cold, the lighting system and the heating yet to kick in. Chloe would be freezing, he thought absently. A smile came to his lips of its own accord as he thought back to a few days ago when Chloe had just dropped by to visit him in his 'natural habitat.' She'd caught him and his Dad working out in the yard, and she'd insisted on joining in on their new project, Clark's 'Fortress of Solitude.' After about an hour of hard labour she'd left, much dirtier than when she'd arrived and with a few dozen splinters to show for her effort.

His smile grew into a grin as he made his way along the corridor, peering through the darkness. Even with his abnormally good eyesight, it took a moment for him to spot and register what he'd seen through the dim blackness.

His eyes darted over the poster, not taking in the words or details until his brain finally received the message and he stopped cold.

Fear gripped his muscles, such fear and shock and anger that he hadn't felt in a long, long time that he couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe.

In one decisive move he whirled round and faced the poster, stepping close to it before the panicky adrenaline failed him and he fled.

No. What he'd thought he'd seen had been true. His secret was exposed.

There, tacked innocently next to a poster advertising the next school dance, was his face staring back at him. Taken five years ago without his consent, the image of his past had come back to haunt him. Next to eleven year old Clark was a photo of him now, also apparently taken without his consent because he couldn't remember having had his picture taken in a very long time.

And there, above the photographs, was a detailed description of his life in small print, beneath a much larger headline that screamed:

"CLARK 'KENT' AKA CLARK BOSWELL!"

He didn't think about it. He just ripped the poster from the wall roughly, tearing it down the middle but not caring, spun on his heel and fled. As he sprinted for the door, out of the corner of his eye he could see hundreds of carbon copies of the poster clutched tightly in his hand, one great blur of his worst fear flashing past at high speed.

---

Not too far away but much later, Pete nudged Chloe in the ribs. She promptly let out a grunt and a scowl in his direction.

"What?"

Pete motioned to a tall guy hanging around at the back of the crowd, strangely not looking interested or shaking his head sadly in time with the rest of the onlookers as the ambulance carted away the third victim of electrical mishaps that week. "Who's the weirdo?"

"I don't know," Chloe replied, a little irritated that Pete expected her to know everything. That irritation turned to curiosity, however, as a small smirk surfaced on the guy's face, and he dropped back as if to walk away. "Let's check him out."

She raised the small digital camera to her face and snapped off a couple of shots before he could turn away and skulk off to wherever it was that weirdoes skulked off to.

---

How many years had it been since he'd come here? Six, at least, Clark guessed as he ran his hand over the worn stone. A shining sword glimmered in a glass case next to the stone archway. Multicoloured jewels embedded in the extravagant hilt flashed at him as he stepped in front of the case to get a better look.

Six long years this sword had haunted him. He considered this sword to be his undoing, his downfall. If only he hadn't laughingly agreed to a game with his friend, if only he'd thought to move out of the way in time, if only Lex could have seen that his Father was not to be trusted… too many 'ifs.'

"_If I didn't believe you could win, I wouldn't you be asking you to play me, would I?"_

_Clark tilted his head as a question. "What do you mean?"_

"_There's no point in playing if I know I will win. Therefore, I must believe you capable of winning," Lex supplied smoothly, looking at the blades in his hands all the while, as if mesmerised by their sharp edges. At length he snapped his gaze up to Clark and tossed him one of the identical swords._

_He caught it clumsily, and turning it over in his hands he replied, "Even though I've never played before?"_

"_Even though you've never played before," his friend confirmed, smiling an encouraging smile at the eleven year old. Then he quickly shoved the desk to one side and stepped back, bringing the sword up in front of him protectively. A challenge lurked in his eyes._

_Clark took a deep breath and accepted it, grasping the sword firmly by the handle._

_Seconds passed slowly, each daring the other to begin. Lex made the first move. He darted forward and aimed a sweeping blow at Clark's legs, which he jumped over, landing heavily before directing a wobbly blow at Lex's right arm. The move was badly aimed and even worse thought out, and before Clark knew it Lex's blade had sliced through his left hand._

_Except for that it didn't slice clean through the tendons and ligaments and bone, it shattered with a horrifying crash on the tanned skin._

_Time seemed to slow for Clark. He could easily have run that instant, turned tail and fled and never set foot in Smallville again. Start a new life, leave this wretched town and his drunken dad and his dead mother and his horrified best friend. But something compelled him to stay._

_As time returned to normal speed Clark caught Lex's eye. He'd expected to see shock, horror, even fear. Instead he saw… confirmation? Satisfaction, even?_

_Lex straightened and wiped the back of his hand across his brow, never breaking eye contact. Then he strolled over to the drinks cabinet and tossed a bottle of Tynant at a shocked Clark. The bottle bounced off his dumbstruck chest and fell to the ground, rolling to a stop when it hit the hilt of Lex's smashed sword._

_Lex himself took a swig and then a seat, gesturing for Clark to do the same as he rolled up his sleeves._

_Clark did so slowly, every move telling of his puzzlement._

"_So," Lex said brightly when Clark was seated awkwardly. "How long have you been from another planet?"_

_If the question was meant to catch Clark off guard, it fulfilled its purpose spectacularly._

"_What!" Clark spat, eyes widening._

"_Relax, Clark. There's no need to look so worried. I've known, or a at least suspected, for quite a while. This was just confirmation."_

_Still Clark didn't relax, if anything he became more tense. "What… how… how did you…?"_

_Lex took pity on him and answered for him. "A car hits an eleven year old at sixty miles an hour and both driver and eleven year old miraculously survive?" He paused and smiled a little. "You're a bright kid, Clark. You do the math. The question now is, what do we do about it?"_

"_Do about it?" Clark repeated faintly. He looked positively sick now._

"_I knew you would want to know more about your real parents. What adopted kid wouldn't? And with my help, you can." Lex proceeded to explain his plan to learn more about Clark's heritage and developing powers, and for a few hours they discussed what they would do next._

"_So what do you say?" Lex offered him his hand, leaning forward so that Clark could reach it should he want to accept his deal._

_Clark considered Lex for a long minute, going through all the pros and cons of agreeing. Lex was his friend, he knew that, he knew for sure that he would never hurt him on purpose…_

_Clark took the proffered hand and shook it, sealing their deal, and ignoring the little voice at the back of his mind that told him it was a very bad idea_.

"Long time ago, wasn't it?"

Clark very nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled around back to the present only to see Lex again before him, a wistful sort of expression on his face. Clark forced his heart rate back to normal.

Lex motioned to the case behind Clark and strolled forward so they were looking at it side by side. Eventually Lex spoke as if to the sword.

"I know you're wondering why I kept it."

Clark shot Lex a sideways glance, at the precise moment Lex did likewise and their eyes met. "How do you know that?" Clark said instead.

Lex smiled mirthlessly and moved away, leading his friend away from that ominous artifact of their past. "It's a talent prized in a Luthor. And I kept the sword because it's a reminder, a reminder of my inability to see the truth."

Clark shut the huge office door behind them and frowned at his friend, misunderstanding his meaning. "But you knew about… _me_… before you even hit me with that sword…"

"I meant my inability to see the truth where it really matters," Lex corrected him sharply, hitting a red ball viciously into a pocket with the cue stick simultaneously, and Clark knew he was referring to his father.

Lex abruptly stood up and leaned the cue stick to one side, surveying Clark with a determining gaze that made him squirm. He hated it when Lex did that.

"Why are you here, Clark?" Lex asked when Clark looked away uncomfortably.

Sighing quietly, he scratched the back of his neck nervously before replying. "I… don't really know." They both knew it was a lie the instant the words crossed his lips. The silence settled tightly around them like a wet blanket.

"Yes, I do know," Clark suddenly said decisively. He looked up to see Lex's face. "Why did you tell your father about me?"

There. He'd said it. Six long years of wondering why, why his best friend had felt the need to betray his confidence. There was no taking it back now, Lex's expression had lost its placid mask and his emotions were playing freely across his face. Trepidation. Anger. Guilt.

"I was a fool," he said in a low voice.

Clark hesitated, then realised he'd come this far, why stop now? "That's not a reason."

"No, it's not," Lex agreed with a heavy sigh. "And I can't give you a reason, because I don't have one. All I have are excuses. I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear another one of those."

Still Clark didn't look satisfied, as he stood there with his hands thrust in his pockets awkwardly. Lex knew this was a great breakthrough for him, he'd never been so forthcoming in his whole life. Ever since Lex's father's researchers had stripped Clark of his innocence, Clark felt he didn't have the right to demand explanations, ask questions, to fit in with humanity because he just wasn't human.

Lex sighed again and strode across to his drinks cabinet, once more tossing Clark a bottle of Tynant. This time he caught it deftly in one hand.

"Have a seat and tell me the real reason why you came all this way to talk to me," Lex said, sinking into the black leather behind his desk.

Clark shot him a quizzical look but sat down anyway, unscrewing the lid off his water. He took a few sips to give him some time to think about what he wanted to say, then blurted out, "Someone knows I'm from another planet."

For his part Lex did take this news very well. He only raised an eyebrow and choked on his drink a little bit. Leaning forward he set his drink down quickly, "What?"

Clark took a deep breath. "There're posters all over the school."

Lex sat back again heavily. "How?"

"I don't know." Clark spread his hands helplessly. "You told me before Mom and Dad adopted me, there would always be a chance that someone would recognise me."

Lex nodded distractedly, running one hand over his smooth head. "Yes, but I took several measures to ensure this wouldn't…" He suddenly stopped and looked intently at Clark. "And it's only now that somebody's recognised you? You've been at school for a week."

"It's not that small a school, Lex," Clark reminded him. Lex grimaced.

"Don't worry, Clark, I'll clean it up." Lex said quietly, still with the grimace on his face. Clark nodded mutely, but his eyes were troubled.

There was a long pause, then, "Alright, so when did this happen?"

"Just now. I went in early because…" Clark paused. "I was supposed to meet Chloe at the Torch. I'd better go." He started to get up, heading hastily to the door.

Lex's introspective voice called him back. "Chloe Sullivan?"

His hand on the door handle, Clark looked back. "Yeah. Why?"

"She's that reporter who's interested in all things weird and wonderful?" Lex continued slowly.

"Yeah," Clark repeated, faint lines of confusion appearing on his forehead. "Chloe's the editor of the school paper. What's this about, Lex?"

Jerking out of his trance, Lex focused on his friend and smiled reassuringly. "Nothing."

Clark nodded and smiled back tightly before opening the door.

"Just watch your back, Clark."

---

Clark was shaking with repressed fear by the time he'd walked all the way back from Lex's mansion to the outer gates of Smallville High. He'd taken Lex's advice against his better judgment and decided to weather the storm, ride it out, just go back in there, be himself and let the comments roll off him like water off a duck's back. He didn't feel remotely like a duck as he stood there trembling all over. More like a chicken, if he had to be some form of poultry. A scared chicken at that.

He shuffled his feet nervously. He checked his watch. The bell signaling first period was about to ring. He had to get in there now unless he wanted lunchtime detention for tardiness.

Taking a deep breath, he propelled himself through the gates, up the steps, through the doors and into the quickly emptying hallway as the bell rang in synchronisation with the doors shutting behind him.

Students were filing into their respective classrooms, talking in low whispers amongst themselves. A teacher was at the other end of the corridor, Clark recognised her as Mrs. Taylor, his English teacher, as she frowned over her small square spectacles and continued ripping down posters from the wall. _The posters._

Clark sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth. Mrs. Taylor seemed to have heard, for she looked up and shot him a pitying smile that Clark supposed was meant to be sympathetic. The last thing he wanted at that moment was sympathy, let alone pity.

He turned and ducked through a corridor he couldn't recall seeing before to avoid her. Almost ten minutes later he found himself lost but surprisingly calm. Undoubtedly he'd receive a detention for bursting in on history so late, but that didn't seem to be much of a problem at the moment as he faced two doors, neither of which he'd seen before.

After some deliberation he chose the left door, a vague idea in his mind that it might lead to the Torch office. He was just about to push the door open when it opened from the other side, and Chloe burst through in a terrible state. Her normally perfectly styled blonde hair was plastered about her face which had tears dripping down from her distressed eyes.

"Chloe!"

She bumped into his chest, looked up at him dazedly then leaned her head back on his chest, wrapping her arms around his midriff. The human contact felt strange at first, having gone so long without a friendly kiss on the cheek or pat on the back, but soon Clark relaxed and sank into the hug. Something felt wholly right about the gesture, as if Chloe's small body had been made to fit next to his. He momentarily forgot the troubles of the morning and closed his eyes, resting his head on top of hers and feeling her shake with repressed sobs. Chloe's hurt was more important than his own right now.

At length, once the shaking had lessened she stepped back, wiping her eyes furiously with the back of her hand before looking warily up at her friend. "I'm sorry, Clark," she whispered, sounding nasal.

"It's ok," he said quietly, thinking she was referring to the way she'd broken the unspoken rule about not getting too close to him. "It was… fine. I actually kinda… liked it..."

He slowed down as he saw her face grow paler by the second. Chloe shook her head adamantly, fresh tears streaming forth.

"No," she said, then her face crumpled and she sunk weakly to the floor, her knees buckling as if she didn't possess the energy to keep herself upright any longer. Clark was instantly at her side, kneeling next to her, and if she'd been in her right mind she would have made a note of the speed at which he seemed to appear.

"I'm sorry…" she repeated brokenly. Clark stared at her for a second then reached out and laid one hesitant hand on her shoulder. It trembled then stayed still.

"Don't worry about it," he said, frankly puzzled at her overreaction.

"No, I mean… I don't mean that…" she choked out before a sob. Clark frowned in utter confusion.

"Chloe? What's wrong? What happened? Did I do something wrong?" he asked her worriedly, beginning to think that he'd done something to offend her. That was what happened at the Labs, he reflected, if something went wrong then the scientists always had a scapegoat, namely him.

Sucking in some much-needed oxygen, she managed to calm her breathing somewhat. "I… I'm the one responsible for those posters."

The silence rang with a horrifying finality. Chloe had stopped sobbing the second the words escaped her lips, as if confessing had removed a great weight off her chest. Clark sagged back onto his heels, a new weight weighing him down. His hand slipped unnoticed from her shoulder.

Silent tears now coursed rapidly down Chloe's cheeks, tears that collected under her chin then fell gently to her lap. She stared at Clark so intently anyone would have thought her life depended on it, studying his expression, the look in his eyes when he heard those words. She knew, not through his telling her as one would to a close friend, but through her own insatiable curiosity and means as a reporter, that he'd been betrayed in the past. She knew practically every detail of his removal from his home in Grandville to a cold, sterile laboratory in Metropolis, but could only imagine the pain she'd just put him through - again.

She'd considered him a friend, a close friend, and she liked to think he had considered her in the same light too, and liked to fantasize about even more. The look on his face told her her former assumption had been mutual, if not the latter.

Clark stared at no particular spot on the floor for a long, long minute. Then he slowly raised his eyes to hers, and pleaded with her silently to tell him she was joking, just fooling around, having a laugh at his expense, because though the joke would be cruel, it would be a million times better than the truth.

She could only hold his gaze for a few seconds, then she looked away.

He stood up, again as slow as if he was wading through molasses, then moved to the door in a trance. She made no move to stop him, and offered no explanation or excuse for her actions.

He didn't ask.

**End of Part Five**

**As per usual, please review if you like. : )**


	7. Redemption

**Hello there, I'm sorry this is a little late, it's because I had a few exams this week. :(**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for beta-ing! **

**Diverse**

**Part Six: Redemption**

The breeze was light and warm, but still cold for early summer. A bird broke into song somewhere off in the distance, perhaps along the horizon of pine trees; it made Clark jerk out of his trance. Several hours sitting at the top of a windmill had given him a chance to think, if nothing more.

He'd come to the conclusion that he had no conclusion. He didn't know why Chloe had done it, what exact role she had played, or, if given the chance, she would do it again. All trust he'd placed in her felt shattered. She was the closest thing to a friend he had at school, in fact the closest friend he'd had for years. Their friendship felt comfortable, yet there was always that tinge of excitement that kept them both guessing.

But there was the inexcusable fact that kept popping up; she'd betrayed him. She'd gone behind his back to purposefully hurt him, friends didn't do that. So where did that leave their relationship? Did he want to salvage their friendship? Did she?

The creaking of the ladder behind him gave him his answer. Chloe quietly reached the platform of the old windmill overlooking Chandler's Field, and hovered behind Clark for a moment, who didn't turn around, though he was doubtlessly aware of her presence. She walked slowly to his right and sat down beside him, crossing her legs underneath her. The silence stretched uncomfortably for a minute until it became clear to both that neither wanted to speak. But neither wanted the silence to settle either.

They both began to speak at the same second.

"Clark, I'm sorry, I-"

"Chloe, what are you-"

They stopped and stared at each other for a moment, and neither could help smiling a little. Chloe eventually dropped her eyes. "You go first."

Clark hesitated. "What… what are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"I followed you." She answered his second question first, a little guiltily as she fiddled with a loose cotton at the corner of her shirt.

Clark looked bewildered. "But I came here almost two hours ago…"

"I know," Chloe replied, her guilt turning to embarrassment. "I didn't know whether I should come up so I waited at the bottom." Normally she would have laughed at herself in an embarrassed sort of way, but the last thing she felt like doing was laughing. Clark didn't laugh, either, just gazed at her so steadily she could feel the intensity and had to look up.

"I really am truly sorry," she said seriously, trying to force through her sincerity with her words. Clark's expression didn't change, but his eyes flickered. "I never set out to hurt you. I never imagined something like this would happen… I just… I just let my insatiable curiosity get the better of me… again," she admitted as an afterthought. Breathing out a heavy sigh, she glanced down at her lap, staring at the loose thread she'd pulled free from her top. "I don't know who made those posters, but-"

"You didn't make them?" Clark interrupted sharply, and her head bobbed up.

"No!" She shook her head quickly, eyes wide. "No, I didn't make them! I only found out the information, I don't know who used it - they must have found my files. You have to believe me, now I would never-"

"I believe you." Clark said quietly, stopping her mid-flow.

"You… you do?" Her voice held a tremor, and she bit her lip hopefully. "You… forgive me?"

Staring into space for a long moment of contemplation, Clark didn't answer her. Chloe watched him wide-eyed until he eventually looked at her.

"I didn't say that," he told her quietly but truthfully. Chloe's eyes instantly filled with tears but she nodded in acceptance of the words and blinked back the tears that so desperately wanted to fall.

Clark stood up and walked slowly towards the ladder. At the top rung he paused, watching Chloe's back shake with repressed sobs. He looked away and climbed down.

---

Contrary to only a few hours earlier, the school's brightly coloured corridors were once more lonely and empty, the students that once filled them working hard in their various classes.

Clark wandered down the halls aimlessly, taking in the blank walls with the telltale scraps of blue-tack and torn paper but letting his thoughts drift. How could he possibly fit in again? Not that he'd really fitted in before the whole world knew he was a freak; he'd always been something of a loner. Was there any point in pretending to be something he wasn't - normal?

He shook his head angrily, fending off hot tears that burned the back of his eyes. The bell signaling lunch break rang just above his head in a sudden throb of noise, and he darted away, clutching his ears. The students filing tiredly into the hallway didn't seem bothered by the sound, but Clark quickly found a quieter corridor to wander down. Only a few students occupied this hallway, and even less paid him any attention, most were too preoccupied with chatting to their friends or had their nose in a book.

A door suddenly opened at the far end of the corridor to admit a number of laughing, rowdy students and… Lana Lang.

Clark froze, heedless of the attention and annoyed shouts he was garnering as he stood directly in the centre of the hallway. Lana smiled, too, looking up at the blonde guy (also smiling) whom Clark had seen her with before.

Her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared when her roving gaze settled on Clark. His mouth ran dry and his first instinct was to run, to get out of here before she could hurt him again.

Time seemed to grind to a halt, though Clark was still vaguely aware of people pushing past and angry mutterings in his ears.

Clark was almost grateful for the scathing yell behind him. "Hey, Kent!"

Tearing his gaze away from Lana, he looked back and saw Josh Blake filling the hallway with his three cronies. He swallowed his nerves and gathered up his courage.

"What?" He said bravely, though much more feebly than he would have liked.

Although Clark could only assume Josh had called him in hope of a reply, his lip curled in an ugly sneer at the response. He glanced over his shoulder at the three boys as if to check they were still there like the coward that he was, then gave them a nod. Apparently this must have been their prearranged signal, for they started to walk towards Clark at exactly the same instant, their steps in time. It would have been comical in another situation, but all Clark felt inside was dread.

His insides knotted with fear and he backed away a few paces, not daring to take his eyes off them. Amongst many of his fears, he was claustrophobic. Being confined to one small cell at the laboratory in Metropolis with daily tests and nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, had made sure of that. Gradually, over the years, his phobias had lessened, but now, as Blake's gang forced him into an alcove between two lockers by their sheer presence, all those fears came rushing back.

"Just what the hell are you, you _freak_!" Blake's voice carried Clark back to the present, and he felt a small surge of thankfulness towards the other boy, for the first and last time grateful to him for making him focus on the here and now and not get swept up by nightmares from the past.

That small surge of thankfulness disappeared as soon as Blake's fist struck the locker just to the left of Clark's head. The next one dealt a glancing blow to his jaw. As he sidestepped quickly to the right but found his path blocked by another of the gang who's name he didn't know but didn't like the look of, he was suddenly hit by a revelation, as well as a fist. The punch had actually hurt, hurt as if his skin wasn't invulnerable, and from the looks on their grim faces, they weren't messing about this time.

He let out a grunt, doubling over to ease the pain in his stomach. He received another blow to the back of his neck that sent him to his knees, and distantly became aware of a great number of agitated voices. Most were shouting encouragement, not to him, but to Blake and his gang, though he thought he could hear a minority yelling for Blake to lay off him.

"Get him, the piece of filthy-"

"What did he ever do to you!"

"He deserves it, didn't you see the posters! He's some kind of alien monster!"

He couldn't stay here. More kicks and punches rained down on him as the rest of the gang began to join in. The pain was intense, but not wholly unbearable. Compared to the burning agony of the meteor rocks, this was a pushover.

Crouching down and gritting his teeth, he made himself as small as possible and waited for his opportunity. It was hard to think straight with fear clutching his neck and cutting off the oxygen supply to his brain, but it didn't take a genius to recognise and escape route when he saw one. He darted between two pairs of legs in an opening just big enough for him, knocking one of the guys off balance, and, panting heavily, ran at a sprint down the corridor and burst through the double doors to the front lawn.

Keeping to a hasty jog, the most he could manage in his current condition, he leapt down the stairs and hurtled down the path to the road. He heard the doors bang open behind him and more shouting as he assumed Blake pursued him, but focused on running, feeling the air wheeze in and out of his lungs.

It was a strange sensation, having to actually work hard to make himself move, to force his aching muscles to carry on. The very air seemed elusive, as if it too was trying to avoid coming near the alien freak. There certainly wasn't enough oxygen fuelling his legs, but that didn't matter, he reassured himself as the end of the path came into sight.

Six steps from freedom his head span and his protesting muscles slowed. A vague dizziness washed over him as if someone had just poured a bucket of water over his head, and his knees buckled as he sank bonelessly to the floor.

---

Chloe roused herself from the stupor she was in and stood up at the noise outside the Torch office. As soon as Clark had left her at the windmill she'd pulled herself back into her car and drove to school, not saying a word to anyone as she passed people on the way in, and promptly locked herself in the Torch. She spent the next few minutes busying herself with pointless articles and stray pieces of homework, and not once did her mind leave Clark. After a while she'd finished every scrap of homework she'd gotten, had the next edition of the Torch printed a good hour before deadline and tidied up the entire office. It was then that she allowed herself to slump into a chair and cry it all out. When it seemed all the tears had been sucked out of her, she sat and did nothing. Until a riot outside disturbed her from her very important work. Chloe stood up and poked her head out the door, just in time to see the back of a very familiar head disappear out the front doors.

Frowning, she stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her, watching silently as three or four individuals peeled off from the main crowd and chased after Clark.

Her heart jumped into her throat and she ran blindly through the crowd, worming her way through the many people until she was outside and racing across the sunny green grass. As the figures drew closer, she could see one was sprawled on the floor, the other four skidding to a halt beside him. He shrank away from them as they stood over him, writhing in apparent pain.

Tears she thought she didn't have left to cry stung her eyes, but these tears were of pure anger rather than sorrow.

Chloe marched straight up to the middle man and spun him around before punching him hard on the nose. "Take that you selfish, evil, sadistic PIG!"

Josh Blake staggered, one hand flew up to his nose and the other released a small green rock, which skittered along the ground before it came to a rest against Clark's boot. Clark instantly recoiled and drew his legs up into his chest, at the same time trying to lift his head to see his rescuer.

"_Arrgh_!" Blake staggered a bit more, and luckily his cronies were all too shocked to do anything but stand and gape at the audacity of the small blonde, otherwise Chloe might have found herself in a spot of trouble.

Still shaking with anger, she reached around a groaning Blake and snatched up the meteor rock, lent back as far as she could and lobbed it away over the road and into the neighbouring field, where it disappeared amongst the corn.

"You BITCH!" Blake screamed, having recovered enough to stand upright and glare at Chloe from two black eyes. Blood still seeped steadily from his nose and down his chin. He clenched his fists, and Chloe could have sworn he growled at her before stepping slowly up to her. Chloe had enough sense to realise her situation wasn't good, Blake topped her by several inches (though he was still shorter than Clark,) and he wasn't looking too friendly at the moment. She backed away quickly, only to step on the toes of another of the gang. Looking around frantically, she noticed they'd surrounded her without her noticing.

She gulped. Blake bared his bloody teeth and reared his fist back, the fist that in any second would come smashing down on Chloe's face. She didn't close her eyes but steeled herself for the blow… but suddenly there was something blocking her view of Blake's angry face, a broad, plaid-clad back.

"Clark!" She gasped as he caught the fist with one hand, forcing Blake back with a strong grip. Chloe couldn't see Blake's face but she could hear his whimpers.

The crowd was silent as Clark took it step by step, Blake backing off with each one. Blake's hand was still being held in a vice like grip by Clark's, who's whole body appeared to be trembling with anger.

Finally, when Blake's back was pressed up against the gate so hard that he was almost bending over backwards to get away from the taller boy, Clark twisted the arm then let go. Blake slid weakly to the floor, tears now accompanying the blood on his face.

Clark blinked then turned around to look at Chloe. As his eyes slid over the shocked crowd gathered, he seemed to return to reality and realise what he'd just done, for he took one frightened look at Chloe and… disappeared.

That was it. One moment he was there, fear and doubt playing across his face to the silent onlookers, the next he was gone, only a sharp breeze ruffling a few people's clothes marking his leave.

Chloe allowed herself to breathe and sucked in a great lungful of air, then sat quickly down before she fell down. It was only then that she noticed Blake's gang had scattered, there was no trace that they had even been there, leaving Blake to make the excuses to the teachers on his own. Only a murmuring crowd remained, watching as if mesmerised as Blake moaned and Chloe rolled shakily to her feet.

Still feeling a bit shell-shocked, she walked on unsteady legs past the staring crowd and around to the back of the school where her car was parked. Once safely in, she let out a breath and rested her head on the steering wheel for a few seconds. Then she resolutely twisted the key and pulled out of the parking lot onto the road.

---

Dust floated in hazy swirls, each particle catching and refracting golden sunlight. Clark sighed and turned over on the old couch, looking away from his new loft's window. Three months of hard work had built this loft, and already the spiders were moving in. He watched one crawl along the arm of the couch, one leg after the other.

If he so wanted, he could reach out and trap that spider under his palm. End its sad little life. But he wouldn't; because he could identify somewhat with that little spider. Clark's life could fall apart any second, all it took was for the next eccentric billionaire to come along and trap him under his greedy palm. Clark was just as helpless as the spider, a feeling he knew only too well and was sure he wouldn't miss if he never encountered it again.

He was just waiting for the hand to fall… fall into the abyss of pain and relieved memories that refused to go away…

"_Oi, you! Go away! Get off of my land this instant!"_

_Daniel Boswell made an impressive sight towering in the doorway, bedclothes still rumpled furiously and eyes alight with anger. He was the sort of intimidating figure even God himself would cower at, framed so dramatically against a backdrop of light._

_Lionel Luthor didn't bat an eyelid._

"_Certainly, Mr. Boswell. I was simply wondering whether your son would like to …participate… in a science project I'm planning?"_

_Eleven year old Clark Boswell clung tighter to the banister at the top of the stairs, his little knuckles turning white. He didn't like this strange man with a predator-like smirk. Clark thought there was something extremely sneaky about him, but apparently his Father didn't share his sentiments._

"_There would be certain benefits, of course," the man added pleasantly, and Daniel opened the door wider, inviting the man in._

_Clark stayed firmly in place at the top of the stairs but crouched down so as not to be seen as his father led the strange man into the living room. Father would surely be mad and punish him for getting out of bed without permission, so Clark made a point to creep down the stairs quietly and slowly, so it was that his father and the man were already finishing their discussion when Clark hid behind the living room door._

"_How exactly do you know about Clark's… _heritage_… anyway, Mr. Luthor?" Daniel was asking a little suspiciously, although he'd started calling the man 'Mr. Luthor' instead of 'Oi you!'_

_Mr. Luthor offered that same sickeningly pleasant smile again. "I believe you know my son, Lex? Yes, the one little Clark rescued from the river a few months back. Well, shall we say he noticed a few abnormalities, if I may be so bold, with your son, and informed me. Naturally I thought a man of your stature would be pleased to help out the scientific community."_

_The compliment was blatantly false, and made Clark feel a little sick for more than one reason - what had that comment about the scientific community meant, and what did Lex have to do with this anyway?- but Daniel seemed to suck it up and swell with pride._

_The deal, it seemed was in the bag._

"_Just name a time and place, Mr. Luthor."_

_Shortly after, Clark found himself being dragged, kicking and screaming off his home. His captors soon found a length of rope to silence his protests, and he was dumped unceremoniously into the back of a navy van with little care._

_Clark remembered it was navy because at the time he had thought it odd that it wasn't black as was per usual with kidnappers - as irrational and irrelevant thoughts often popped up when one was in something of a bad situation._

_He could, too, remember the look on his Father's face as the doors slammed shut behind him. A sort of guilt, relief and anguish all at the same time. Still he made no effort to help Clark._

_Countless hours of traveling later, Clark was shaken awake roughly and hastily transported out of the dark van, into bright daylight which made him squint, then back into darkness at what he could only assume from the needles and medicines lining the walls was a doctor's operating room._

_He soon found out he was wrong_.

"What's wrong, son?"

Clark jumped out of his depressing daydream and rolled over onto his back, to look up at the ceiling and-

"Dad?" he said softly, before twisting around into a sitting position.

Jonathan smiled sadly in reply, figuring his son was just thinking, and sat down next to him.

"The school just called." His voice wasn't accusing or demanding, it was just a statement to which Clark could reply to if he so chose.

"What did they say?" Clark replied instantly, covering up the fear in his voice as best he could.

Jonathan sighed. "They said there was a fight, and you'd been hurt." He left out the part about Clark giving as good as he got.

Sighing quietly, Clark looked away, out into the clear sky through the barn loft window. Once the silence had settled, he spoke. "I'm fine, really. It's just…" He sighed again and shook his head, cutting his own words off.

Jonathan watched him for several long minutes then stood up and walked away. He returned a few seconds later with a strangely shaped package in his hands, slim and wrapped in cloth.

"It's time, son."

Clark dearly wanted to reply with a bitter 'Time for what?' but reigned himself in, knowing the anger was misplaced, and settled for a raised eyebrow.

Jonathan sat down beside him and laid the package over both their laps reverently.

He started tearing the packaging at one end and motioned for Clark to do the same at the other.

He did so curiously and not a little obstinately, his father hadn't spoken a word to him since fetching the mysterious object. "What… what is it?" Clark ventured after having discovered yet another layer of material to contend with.

"A surprise," Jonathan replied easily.

"Oh," Clark said quietly. He didn't like surprises , given his past experience. He needed to know what was going to happen, where and when. Despite the fact that he knew Jonathan Kent would never purposefully hurt him, Clark couldn't repress the nauseating feeling in his stomach as the last layer rolled away.

A long, black, shiny telescope lay over their laps, folded up neatly and putting Clark in mind of a large spindly spider trying to hide itself away. Clark stared. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but this hadn't been it.

Jonathan ran his hand lovingly over the dark metal, smiling slightly. "Your grandfather gave this to me when I was about your age."

Clark's eyes snapped up to Jonathan's, frowning in a mixture of shock and puzzlement. His grandfather? Dad's Dad? It seemed odd, but he'd never really thought about any other family members than Jonathan and Martha, but now that he really thought about it, it seemed even stranger to think that he actually had more family members out there for him to meet. Grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, cousins… all related to him in some way if not by blood.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up inquisitively at Jonathan, who smiled.

"It's about time I passed it on to _my_ son," he explained simply.

Clark's eyes widened, and in an instant Jonathan was catapulted to the moment he'd first met the boy. Not six months ago, but before then, thirteen years before when Clark Boswell had been just a little tot.

He and Martha, veterans of small town farm life, had gone round to welcome the Boswells to the neighbourhood. Jonathan remembered Martha had taken a basket of flowers from the garden and homemade jams from the pantry.

Daniel and Rose had seemed to welcome the gesture, for they smiled and gushed their 'thank you's' and altogether welcomed them most graciously into their home. Cardboard boxes had been strewn all over the place, but Daniel batted away the Kents' offers to help them move.

Martha had been quite taken with their little boy, and Jonathan too had been sad to say goodbye when it was time to leave. Clark had been such a happy little baby, and his parents so loving, it was hard to believe how circumstances could change people so dramatically. Then again, Clark was living proof of that. No longer a carefree baby, but a grown, troubled teenager.

His wife had been in a dream all the way home, of course, and it was only when they got back home that she'd commented that little Clark didn't look at all like his parents, with his wild black hair and olive eyes.

Jonathan had rolled his eyes and laughed at his wife lovingly, though deep down he found it odd that the boy was three but was yet to utter a single word of English. Thoughts of illegal adoption and kidnapping had danced through his head, but he'd firmly put the Boswells and their son out of mind for the next thirteen years… until now.

"Dad?"

Jonathan jerked out of his stupor to see Clark staring at him with his head tilted curiously. Jonathan smiled and shook his head. He still hadn't told Clark he'd met him as a baby and didn't plan to yet, either. The memory seemed somehow private, as silly as it was, for Clark himself had been there too, even if he couldn't recall it.

"So, where are you going to put it?" Jonathan said brightly, maneuvering himself and the telescope into an upright position and looking around the loft for a suitable home.

"If we put it over here, I should be able to move it into the window at night." Clark got to his feet and headed for the loft's window.

"Alright." Jonathan began to drag the heavy instrument to where Clark was standing, who quickly intervened and helped lift the thing into place.

Jonathan dusted his hands down, looking extremely pleased. Clark smiled too as he stared at the shiny telescope.

"Thanks, Dad," he said quietly but sincerely, feeling the lump in his throat return at the thought of receiving a gift. After his mother had died, Clark hadn't got much in the way of presents, and so this one, particularly since it was his first proper gift from his new family, held extra sentimental value.

Jonathan's smile grew and he patted his son on the shoulder, not sure it he'd be willing to accept a hug and not willing to try just yet. To his surprise, Clark initiated the hug, and they stood there for several seconds before Clark pulled away at the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Chloe's blonde head came into view, eyes red-rimmed and puffy. She paused on the top step and turned to go, saying quickly, "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"That's alright, Chloe." Jonathan grinned at his son's friend, obviously unaware of recent events between the two. "I'll leave you and Clark to it." With that he clattered down the stairs in his hobnail boots, leaving a trail of mud. Mom wouldn't be happy, Clark thought absently.

Chloe hesitated, then said boldly, "Clark, I think we need to talk."

Clark gulped and nodded. "I guess we do."

And grasping the tiger by its tail, he gestured for Chloe to sit down.

**End of Part Six**

**I hope I made Clark's reaction to Chloe betraying him realistic. She's redeemed herself now so that's all that matters. Thanks for all the reviews, the most I've gotten so far for the last chapter:D I'll reply to them all tomorrow or at the weekend, at the moment I unfortunately have to revise for a German exam, bleargh.**


	8. Intervention

**Well, this chapter is only _slightly_ late. Blame school it you have to blame something, just don't throw things at me. ;)**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for betaing!**

**Diverse**

**Part Seven: Intervention**

Chloe shifted under Clark's scrutinising glare. She dropped her gaze and began to play with the corner of her top, fervently wishing she'd had a better idea to apologise to him than dropping in like this and then dragging him all the way to the Torch.

"So," he said, looking around the office as if expecting her to continue. When she didn't he glanced at her and added, "What did… what did you want to talk about up here?"

Chloe could have laughed aloud. Clark was just as nervous of her as she was of him.

Sighing fondly, she forced a small smile to put him at ease and began: "I owe you an apology." She put up a hand to stop him. "No, please just hear me out before you throw me out."

Clark started to protest again, either against throwing her out or hearing her out, Chloe didn't know, but she didn't let him continue to find out.

"I've been a complete jerk, and I realised that as soon as I'd found out that stuff about you, and by the way, no it doesn't matter to me whether you're from… from the _moon_ or not, though I don't suppose that matters now since you'll never want to see me again after I've finished." Here she paused for a fraction of a second to gauge Clark's reaction. He was frowning and looking a little puzzled, but she didn't know if that was a good or bad sign, so she carried on.

"I initially searched for that stuff on you because I thought I recognised you, but I wasn't really 100 sure, and I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I guess you could call me something of a nosy tabloid reporter." She paused long enough to chuckle nervously at herself. "I… wanted to show you something."

She waited for his consent then led a confused Clark through into a backroom off the Torch main office. It was pitch black for a second until Chloe fumbled with the light switch and the dusty old bulb above their heads flared to life, illuminating a huge wall facing Clark. Chloe stepped forward and motioned to its expanse. "I call it the Wall of Weird." She announced, a little quietly.

For a while she watched Clark take all the clippings in, every last one of them. She wasn't sure but she thought she could see unshed tears in his eyes in the dim light.

Clark swallowed. "Why did you show me this?" He eventually asked hoarsely, eyes still darting over the numerous pictures.

"Because I thought you needed to see it. And you need to know it's not your fault," Chloe replied bluntly. Clark flinched and stared at her in astonishment.

"How did you…?"

"Know?" Chloe finished for him. "I can tell. Friends are meant to look out for each other, right?" She answered and bit her lip anxiously, wondering if she'd been too presumptuous in describing their relationship as 'friends.' Clark didn't seem to notice as his eyes flicked back searchingly over the wall.

"There was nothing you could have done about it, Clark. You were just a baby. The meteor rocks caused this, not you," Chloe said kindly. Clark swallowed again and nodded.

The trance broken, Chloe strode briskly to the door, switched the light off and waited for Clark to follow. He did so a minute later, rather reluctantly.

For a moment they stood outside the door and looked at each other awkwardly.

"Clark, I know I've said sorry before, so I'm not holding out much hope for you to forgive me now. I just… I just don't want to give up on this. You're a great friend, Clark. I don't want to lose that." Chloe said eventually, unable to prevent her voice from cracking on the last word.

Clark quirked a shaky smile. "You haven't lost anything, Chloe."

Relief spread across Chloe's face like wildfire, lighting up her eyes and provoking a wide smile.

"Thank you," she told him sincerely, then reached out to give him a hug a little gingerly. To her surprise he didn't flinch and back away, but hugged back with just as much fervour.

They pulled apart minutes later, both their eyes oddly bright. Chloe sniffed and looked at the clock.

"Um, you know I… I better get back to the farm…" Clark said awkwardly, noticing her preoccupation with the time.

Chloe whirled around quickly, making Clark jump a bit. Her eyes softened. "Oh no Clark, that's not what I meant…" She trailed off, looking at him with something of a glint in her eye. "I was just thinking the school dance is in a couple of hours…"

Clark nodded, hiding his disappointment well. "I should have realised you'd want to get ready, I'm sorry… see you Monday?"

Chloe had to force herself not to roll her eyes. It was clear Clark's skin was thicker than a rhino's… both metaphorically and literally… she would have to do this herself, _carefully_ if she even stood a chance of him accepting.

"Well, there's not much point in me getting ready without a partner, is there?" She watched Clark's eyes widen with the implications and was glad she'd deliberately avoided the word 'date'. He was already backing away towards the door.

"Please Clark, it'll be good for you, I promise… and… and I really had my heart set on going…?" Chloe added, squashing her conscience as it reminded her that was a low blow. It worked though. Clark crumbled and nodded a little miserably, though he brightened up when Chloe gave him a huge smile and another short hug. She was practically bouncing off the walls.

"Alright! So I'll meet you…" She checked her watch. "Argh, running low on time… meet you at the dance at 7:30?"

"Ok." Clark replied, on the surface perfectly calm. Inside, butterflies were already chasing each other around his stomach. He'd become good at hiding his emotions over the years - to show fear was to encourage pain.

---

A dull sort of mist had begun to blow across the car park from the cornfields. Anyone other than Clark at that particular moment would have been at least a little intimidated by the eerie atmosphere as the clouds slid across the moon, dimming the slight light left.

Clark, however, noticed none of this; his head was up in the clouds beside the moon. Someone had actually asked him out! Chloe Sullivan had actually asked him out!

The butterflies churning in his stomach were nothing to the overjoyed pounding of his heart as he made his way across the front of the school to the road home. True, he was very nervous and worried as to how his classmates would react to him, the alien freak, attending something so normal as a school dance, but the happiness in his heart to be going with Chloe overrode that. He hesitated to call it a date, though. After all, it seemed to him that Chloe had only asked him because she had no one else to go with, that and she was still feeling guilty for betraying him.

That was another thing that puzzled Clark. Both Chloe and Lana had betrayed him. He felt sure he could never look Lana in the face again even if she continued to apologise him every day for the rest of his life, which incidentally would never happen, but Chloe, on the other hand, he felt at ease with. Chloe's apology was sincere, but with Lana, no matter how beautiful and alluring she was, he had the distinct feeling that she was laughing at him. Laughing at the disgusting alien for trying to be like a human, for trying to be like her.

Still, he wasn't going to waste any more of his time wondering about Lana.

"Hey, Boswell!"

Clark froze, one foot still hovering over the pavement. His instincts screamed at him to run, but he held his ground from a mixture of fear and curiosity. Nobody had ever called him by his old name since coming to live with the Kents.

Slowing his heavy breathing, Clark turned around. Squinting into the darkness, he could pick out the dirty blonde hair and angry blue eyes that were trademarks of Lana's boyfriend, Whitney, he thought his name was.

Whitney strode up to Clark, fury emanating in every line of his body. Clark decided it was a good time to back away but found himself unable to, for the crippling pain of the meteor rocks had seared through his body.

He dropped to one knee, the labour returning to his breathing as he fought for control. Whitney's feet appeared in his line of vision. One foot struck at his ribs, knocking him onto his back and a punch came from nowhere onto his cheek, sending green spots dancing across the insides of his eyelids.

"Congratulations, Clark. You're this year's scarecrow." Whitney's snarling voice penetrated his thoughts and he clung onto consciousness by blindly kicking out with his leg. Whitney easily avoided the blow and leant down, holding Clark close to his face by the scruff of his collar.

"What's going on with you and Lana?" he demanded in a strangely calm voice. Clark didn't reply, woozy and confused by Whitney's question. Did he think Clark would hurt Lana or something?

All façade of calmness gone, Whitney yelled: "Answer me! I saw the way you looked at her!"

Ah. Now there was jealousy in Whitney's tone. So he thought Clark liked Lana? That Lana liked Clark? He didn't know but he knew Whitney was wrong.

"Nothing's… going… on." Clark spat, tasting coppery blood in the inside of his mouth.

"The Hell there isn't!" Whitney roared, forcibly reminding Clark of the time Daniel Boswell had caught people trespassing on his land. That had certainly been a sight to behold, all 200 pounds of angry shotgun-wielding man yelling into the night as the youths fled for their lives.

Whitney had no shotgun, but the tiny sliver of meteor around his neck was just as effective, if not more so. The little green stone set so prettily into a silver clasp swung back and forth before Clark's eyes as Whitney shook him, and he found himself mesmerised by the stone.

"Like Lana's necklace?" Whitney demanded suddenly, apparently noticing Clark's fixation with the meteor rock. "Good. 'Cause this is as close as you're ever going to get to her." He told Clark venomously, and ripped the jewelry from his neck.

Clark tried to resist as Whitney knotted the chain roughly around his neck, but he was like a fish out of water. Gasping for breath through the pain, he became vaguely aware of jeering voices and being picked up and carried, but when he hit the bottom of Whitney's truck unconsciousness took him.

---

The school hall pulsed with music and laughter, clear signs that the party was in full swing. Cars were crammed into the parking lot and still more were arriving.

"Clark should be here by now," Chloe muttered, squinting into the darkness. All she could see were other happy couples piling out of cars, smiling and laughing.

"So he chickened out - you did say he was nervous," Pete reasoned from beside her, also peering about him in the gloom.

Chloe elbowed him in the ribs with a scowl. "He did not chicken out, Pete!"

"Ok, ok!" Pete held up his hands in a gesture of peace. Chloe gave him one last scowl before turning back around to scour the parking lot for any sign of her date.

"I've got the feeling something's gone wrong..." Chloe said a few minutes of silence later, biting her lip uncertainly.

Pete glanced at her with hesitation, then took her arm. "Come on Chlo', let's go inside, you're freezing."

Chloe reluctantly allowed Pete to lead her into the cavernous hall, throwing one last sad look over her shoulder before stepping inside with her friend.

---

It was cold. Dark, as far as he could make out through closed eyes. And wet, too. How odd.

Clark forced his weary head up and winced from the cramps in his neck. He really didn't feel like opening his eyes yet.

Shifting his feet, he found numerous shards of wood in the toes of them, and thick, scratchy ropes bound his ankles to yet more splintery wood. His eyes flew open and his breath began to come in quick, short gasps, panic blooming inside him. The realisation that he was unable to move, to flee the enemy, hit him hard and he struggled desperately against his binds.

It was no use. The innocent green stone still twinkled innocently at his neck. Agony lanced from the points that touched his bare skin, fading to a dull, painful ache along the rest of his body. Not in the best position to fight back against his captors.

A rustle to the right of him made Clark start and his head cleared back to reality. No scientists in white coats, no smirking face of Lionel Luthor… just a crouching figure half hidden in the swaying corn.

Clark opened his mouth to call to the man, but only produced a croaky rasp. He coughed and tried again.

"Help! Help me!"

The figure froze, then turned and straightened up, locking eyes with Clark over the heads of corn. For a second he hesitated, and Clark wondered if he was just going to run off and leave him there, when the man began making his way towards him.

Relieved, Clark let his head sag back down against his chest, conserving his strength.

"It never changes." The man had moved much faster than Clark had thought, for his voice was coming from directly in front of him. Clark grunted and pulled his head up enough to see him. He was an average looking guy, dull blue eyes and brownish hair. The grey hoodie he was wearing was grimy, though something in the way he spoke and held himself told Clark it would be wrong to underestimate him.

"Help me." Clark said, not even noticing that his voice was something of a cross between a whisper and a desperate plea.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" The man replied cryptically, bypassing Clark's request. Clark thought he could see a flicker of a smile on his face and frowned. The man's blue eyes seemed to spark with a hidden excitement, almost like electricity dancing across the surface. A memory suddenly flashed through Clark's mind, he saw Chloe showing him the photo of a suspected meteor freak and could immediately reconcile this face with a name.

"You… you're… Jeremy."

The flicker of a smile grew stronger at Clark's words in recognition of the name. "I thought if I punished them it would stop." Jeremy continued, apparently oblivious of Clark's side of the conversation. "But it never stops." His voice hardened and his fists clenched in anger. With that he spun on his heel and walked away.

"Wait… where are you going?" Clark gasped after him, fear knotting his stomach again.

Jeremy paused and threw a look over his shoulder. "Homecoming dance. I never made it to mine."

"Get me down. Please." Clark panted, for all the good it did. Jeremy carried on walking away, but threw back a cryptic reply:

"You're safer here."

"_Clark, you're safe here. You need to trust me. You are safe." The strange man from before told him patiently, the pleasant expression of a father watching over a young child on his face. Clark felt sick to his stomach, and his face must have reflected this for the man's lip curled and the pleasant expression quickly vanished._

_Six or seven men dressed in lab coats so bright they appeared fluorescent appeared behind him, and Clark shrank back from the thick glass partition even further, balling himself up in the corner of the metal room._

_He had the repulsive sensation of being an animal caged in a zoo, closely scrutinised by a gaggle of curious kids with sharp tools._

_The scientists began to mutter and talk in low whispers amongst themselves that Clark couldn't make out. The man, for all intents and purposes, ignored them and focused on Clark, his eyes boring into the boy. At length, he resumed the conversation as if no time had elapsed._

"_I suppose you're wondering what will become of you?"_

_Clark held his tongue. The man stroked his bearded chin thoughtfully._

"_The first test will begin tomorrow. I expect you to get some rest and be ready for it. Dr. Dawson will be here to… collect you. Do not attempt escape, I assure you the consequences will be most unpleasant. Understood?"_

_Clark nodded vacantly, agreeing but not really understanding what he was agreeing to. His gaze was fixed on a point above the man's right shoulder, where Lex was drawing closer. Lex's face was pinched and closed; eyes dim and distant as he stared down at Clark in the small cell with horror dawning inside him._

_He couldn't meet Clark's eyes, but let his gaze stray across the cell and some of the disgust he felt pushed through the image of calm he possessed. His shields were weakening as he took in the situation, and fear and guilt showing strongly._

_Slowly, he halted just behind the man, jaw clenched and eyes closed, fists trembling as he tried to calm himself._

"_Ah, Lex. You're just in time for the demonstration, son." Clark's breath caught at the revelation. He was being held captive by the legendary Lionel Luthor. Lionel made as if to motion to the two burly security guards but Lex interrupted him hastily._

"_What demonstration?"_

"_Just a display of a few of the subject's various abilities." Lionel smiled benignly, choosing to ignore his son's frustration._

"_He's not a subject," Lex disagreed before he could stop himself. Hope rose in Clark. Lionel turned irritated eyes upon his son with a snarl._

"_What do you mean by this, Lex?"_

"_I mean," Lex continued in a shaking voice, "that Clark is my friend and I will not allow you to do this to him." The hope that had been creeping up Clark's chest blossomed into full-blown joy. If he could he would have hugged Lex at that moment. He'd save him. He had to, because there was no else to play the hero anymore._

_But suspicion and dread began to creep up inside him to join and override the hope and joy as Lionel leaned in to whisper something to Lex that Clark couldn't catch. When Lionel pulled away he was sporting a satisfied smirk, and Lex a grimace. Lionel flicked his head back at the guards and they instantly approached the door, fumbling with many keys hanging off a long chain attached to one man's belt._

_Clark kept his eyes fixed on his friend, willing him to do something, anything, even if it was only to look at him._

_His wish was granted as Lex's head came up and silvery grey irises locked with olive blue. Lex's eyes filled with tears but he did not let them spill, nor did he wipe them away. And slowly, subtly, Lex shook his head in a sign of defeat._

---

Pete didn't remember much after his first couple of drinks from the punchbowl, which according to a sober and irritated Chloe, was spiked. And if going by Pete's wild dancing and hysteric laughter was any way to judge, there was some pretty serious alcohol in that thing.

"Hey, Chlo', come dance already!"

Chloe just scowled and shook off any attempts Pete had at getting her to dance the Macarena. Pete, however, was more persistent.

"Aww, come on, E.T ain't here yet is he?" Pete tried again, dancing his way up to his friend and around her to the punch bowl.

Chloe's scowl disappeared momentarily then returned in full-force as she realised what Pete had just said.

"Pete! Will you shut up for just one second?" she hissed angrily. For some reason she was feeling protective of Clark, even though Pete really hadn't meant any harm. That punch was toxic.

One second of silence greeted her command then Pete began humming out of tune again. Chloe sighed and rolled her eyes.

After ushering her tipsy friend off to dance with a girl a year older than Pete whom he'd been too scared to ask out when sober, she grabbed her purse and strode quickly outside. As much as she liked school dances, the air was hot and humid in the hall, and going stag wasn't all that fun either.

Outside was oddly quiet after the wild noise of the hall. Chloe could still faintly hear the 'thump, thump' of the bass guitar filtering through its walls, so she moved off across the empty car park to the solitary tree beyond. There she settled down to wait.

The bark was rough and cold on the back of her neck, the grass damp and the air more than a little chilly, but Chloe was grateful for it. It soothed the pounding headache and sadness that threatened to overwhelm her.

A great swell of disappointment suddenly rose up inside her. It was clear, even to her, that after two hours of waiting and wondering, Clark was not coming. The question of why remained behind, flitting across Chloe's conscious thought until she was about ready to scream.

It was obvious to anyone else that Clark had simply 'chickened out' as Pete had so kindly put it. All the clues pointed that way, (for Chloe had decided to treat this as a crime scene investigation), but something rang off with Chloe. Call it a feeling, woman's intuition or a nagging at the back of her mind, call it whatever you wish, but the fact remained that Clark was not there and there was a bigger reason for it than his nerves, although they were admittedly pretty big.

Chloe pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, feeling blood rush to her head. She refused to cry. Boys weren't worth crying over. Normally that would be true, but still Chloe couldn't help but feel Clark Kent was something more than an ordinary boy, and not in the extra-terrestrial sense either.

With a sudden return of determination, she struggled to her feet in the fluffy black dress, dusted herself down and turned towards the road to the Torch. Pete had driven her and she had no wish to either steal his keys or be driven by a drunkard in a battered old mini, so she set off on foot, walking close to the cornfields beside the road.

She let her hands brush the stems of the fresh green corn, taking in its texture and scent rather than dwelling on her disaster of an evening. Positive thoughts to prevent herself from breaking down. She'd prepare the next edition of the Torch and return home at midnight, a perfectly happy face on the outside to present to her Dad, no matter how lousy she was feeling on the inside.

Yes, she'd do that and everything would be fine.

**End of Part Seven**

**Thanks for the kind reviews people! Now strictly speaking review responses aren't allowed in here, but I can't reply to people who weren't logged in when they reviewed. Sohuge thanks to Annonie, ForeverTom and Veronica. Shhhhhh!**


	9. Altercation

**I have a reason for not updating for 8 days, I have a very bad cold. Actually I'm really hoping it's not the flu cause I want to be awake this Christmas. This chapter may have a fewweird sentencesin as a result, I'll check it over later. I'm not making much sense at the moment so just ignore me and read on.**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for betaing!**

**Diverse**

**Part Eight: Altercation**

_Silence seemed to fill the world; a silence so thick it even suffocated the faint light peeking from a crack under the door. The door squeaked on its hinges and more light poured in, momentarily shattering the peace and quiet._

_A second of hesitation, then, "Mommy?" A little boy's voiced filled the void._

_No response._

"_Mommy?" Again the voice spoke. Scared. Pleading. Desperate._

"_Yes, Clark?" A delayed and tired reply, still holding infinite patience and love for all its frailty._

"_Why are the lights off?" Clark asked, a tinge of fear creeping up the back of his neck at the impenetrable blackness._

"_Mommy has a headache, dear. A very bad headache. Perhaps Daddy will fix you some milk and cookies if you go downstairs?" she suggested wearily._

_Little Clark shook his head vehemently in the darkness, but Rose could not see it. A few minutes of silence passed, then:_

"_Clark? Are you still here?"_

"_Yes Mommy," A guilty little voice answered._

_Rose opened her mouth to say 'I'll still be here in the morning, you know' but quickly decided lying wouldn't get her anywhere. Already she could feel the blood slowing in her veins, thick and sluggish. Her breath came in harsh rasps which she did her best to muffle for the sake of her son. "Don't worry, baby," she said instead. "You'll be alright. You and Daddy will be alright."_

_Clark's lower lip trembled. "I don't want you to go," he whispered, moving closer to the bed so that he could see his mother's pale face turned towards his. She stretched out a hand to him, sucking in a breath at the pain and nausea it caused. Clark was at her side immediately, latched onto her hand ferociously._

"_Don't worry, Clark," Rose reiterated softly. "You'll have Daddy to look after you down here, and I'll be watching over you-" She paused to motion at the ceiling "- up there. And when it's yours and Daddy's time, we'll be together again. In the meantime, I want you to promise me you'll look after Daddy, and try your hardest in everything you do-"_

"_But-" Clark started to protest, tears shining in his big blue eyes. His mother had never spoken this way before and he didn't like it._

"_Nuh-uh, you'll be just fine, honey," Rose interrupted. Clark couldn't help but notice how much quieter her voice had become and how much louder the air whistling in and out of her lungs sounded. Her gasps echoed ominously in the tiny rose-coloured room._

_Clark's lower lip trembled even more violently, and tears pooled in his eyes, but he bit his lip to stop it quivering and blinked to halt the tears from spilling over his cheeks. Daddy would be angry if he saw him crying over Mommy again, and he didn't want Daddy to be angry._

"_Mommy?" he said a little while later._

"_Yes…" wheeze "…Clark?"_

_Clark's original question evaporated in light of this strange new occurrence._

"_Why does your voice sound funny?"_

"_Just… sore… throat," Rose gasped back, and though Clark nodded as if to accept her explanation, he was frowning hard._

_Hours passed quickly, and Clark knelt on the uncomfortable floor, laying his head on the pillow next to his mother's. After a while her breathing seemed to ease and slow into the pattern of deep sleep, and Clark relaxed against the warm bed._

_He didn't know when he fell asleep, but when he woke up, the raspy breathing had stopped, and the pillow was cold._

_Clark bolted upright, scrambling to his feet and scraping his knees against the wood in his haste to get up. An anguished scream fought its way out the back of his throat, and the tears he'd held at bay before now flooded back._

"_Mommy! Mommy wake up!" His grip on Rose's hand intensified and he shook wildly when there was no response._

"_What happened? Mommy, tell me what happened!"_

"_Mommy, please say something!"_

"_Mommy, please, what's wrong with you!"_

"_Say something! Anything!"_

"_SAY SOMETHING!"_

"Say something! Clark, talk to me!"

With a strangled sort of scream Clark's eyes snapped open and he stopped struggling against the ropes still binding his arms and left leg. Lex hesitated, eyes narrowed as he watched Clark struggle to breathe normally, then bent and untied his other leg, quickly followed by undoing the knots pinning his arms.

Clark fell forward and though Lex steadied him as much as possible, he still ended up as a tangled heap of limbs on the ground. Lex immediately knelt beside his old friend.

"Clark, what is it? Why are you like this?" Lex demanded quickly, eyes roving around the clumps of corn for any hint of a meteor rock. He never thought he'd see the day when he'd actually want to find the green stone that he'd seen cause Clark so much pain. But that had to be it. Why else wasn't he recovering yet?

"Neck…" Clark choked, and Lex's eyes snapped onto the twinkling green jewelry around Clark's neck. Lex tore it off hastily and flung it away as hard as he could. He didn't wait to see where it landed but turned back to Clark, who was sitting up weakly and still trying to gulp more oxygen than was possible into his lungs.

Lex noted the bruises on his arms and ankles from where the ropes had dug in. The sickly yellow colour he'd been sporting earlier had improved to a whiter shade of pale, contrasting sharply with the large red 'S' painted onto his chest. Lex felt sickened at the sight, but there was no time to dwell on what he'd like to do if he ever met the culprits of this particular crime; Clark was already staggering to his feet.

"Clark sit down before you fall down!" Lex barked. Clark ignored him and hurriedly pulled on his jeans and shirt, hopping about crazily in the foliage. Several seams ripped in his haste to pull the items on, but Clark didn't appear to notice or care.

He paused for a split second to say a quick "Thank you," before he tore off through the corn, leaving the deadly necklace in a perplexed Lex Luthor's hand.

Lex rose to his feet slowly, watching the emerald shadows the small crystal played across his skin. The green jewel glinted mesmerisingly in the beam from the Porsche. For minutes on end he stared, transfixed at its deadly beauty, then his hand closed tightly around the sacred stone and a strange look crept into his eyes.

---

A sigh forced its way from Chloe's chest, and resigning herself to another night of lonely work on the Torch, she stood and brushed the dried leaves off her dress. She watched them drift to the floor absent-mindedly.

"Chloe!" a familiar voice suddenly exclaimed. Chloe looked up to see none other than Clark Kent running towards her.

"Clark! What are you doing here? And what happened to you?" she added, eyes flicking to his mucky and torn clothes and his wild hair.

"It doesn't matter, just get out of here, don't follow me!" With that he ran straight past her, in the direction of the hall. He paused long enough to call back a last warning. "Go straight home, Chloe!"

For a split-second, Chloe contemplated doing as he said and going home. Then she hitched her dress up and ran doggedly after him, ignoring the little voice in the back of her mind that she guessed was her conscience.

---

Fuzzy, out of tune music crackled over the chatter. Clark had crept in through the back doors, the ones that the band used to enter and exit the stage to avoid being noticed, but from the level of noise he doubted he'd have been noticed even if he had burst in through the front doors.

The place was flooded. Water sloshed into his shoes when he leapt lightly down from a side of the stage, (the band were frantically trying to salvage any remaining electrical equipment they could), and the general direction people were heading in was the front door. Clark knew they wouldn't get very far, he'd noted the front door was locked tightly when he'd sped past. He hadn't even realised he'd bent steel in his bare hands in his haste to get through the back door.

Wading through the crowd until he was about knee-deep in water, Clark caught snippets of conversation that told him nobody really knew what was going on and nobody was really worried.

"Yeah, I can't wait to get home and dry off, my dress is so wet!"

"You can come back and dry off at my place, sweetie."

"Get a life, Jordan."

"I wonder why the sprinklers are malfunctioning?"

Once in the middle of the hall, Clark halted and squinted through the sprinkler water, looking for any sign of Jeremy. Advantages: Jeremy thought he was still tied up in the cornfield. Disadvantages: he'd only gotten a glimpse of Jeremy's face in the dark, couldn't see anyone that looked like him anywhere, and had no idea what Jeremy planned to do to exact this 'revenge' of his, other than get them all soaking wet, that was. Pneumonia, perhaps?

Just then, shouts came from the front of the steadily moving crowd. Apparently they'd discovered they were locked in.

The noise level rose a notch or two, the crowd began to jostle in different directions and… there was Jeremy standing in the middle of the currently dry stage.

Clark stared at him, but as far as he could tell there were no bombs, guns or knives on his person, which was odd… but what was it Chloe had said earlier? He was a suspected meteor freak… which meant he had some form of weird power, right? But what…?

It came to him in a flash. Jeremy was leaning down carefully, reaching towards the flooded floor with one hand. Jeremy himself was safe on the raised stage platform, but all these people…

"No!" Clark wasn't aware that he'd yelled or even moved, but suddenly he was knocking Jeremy backwards, away from the water, into the stage wall. It seemed like only a second ago he was standing almost a hundred yards away, then a rush of colour and wind, and he was pinning Jeremy to the wall. People were yelling behind him, and Clark vaguely thought he heard Lana's voice in the crowd. He hoped they were working on getting the front door open rather than attempting to get through the back door and perilously close to Jeremy in the process.

"You!" Jeremy spat angrily, recognising Clark instantly. "What are you doing here? Can't you see I'm helping you?"

Clark's eye narrowed as he felt blood pound in his ears. "I won't let you hurt my friends," he said as calmly as possible.

Jeremy looked taken aback, then a cunning smirk stretched his face. "They're not your friends… they betrayed you, used you… revenge is so close, so, so close…" His right hand had wormed its way free and he clenched it into a fist. Blue sparks danced around his fingers, shooting off in random directions periodically. "I have a gift, a purpose."

"So do I," Clark growled in a low voice.

In a flash Jeremy had forced his fist into Clark's face and they tumbled backwards, Clark twisting away to sever contact with the hand sending electricity dancing over his body. Jeremy flailed and kicked Clark in the ribs but he didn't feel it, and they were so close to the edge of the stage…

Clark knew he had to get Jeremy away from the water. Get him away, get him to stop. He could feel the astonished stares of the watching crowd on his back, flitting about like helpless flies in the face of a spider, but paid them no heed as he scrambled to his feet.

Jeremy was already backing away, sporting a split lip and a grimace.

"Jeremy, you need to stop this," Clark tried again. "Killing everyone won't accomplish anything."

Jabbing a finger in Clark's direction, Jeremy bristled, eyes thinning into dangerous slits with a hidden fire burning beneath. "You know how long I've waited for this day? Do you know how long I've suffered? Twelve years! _Twelve years! _I have the right - I've earned the right to revenge. What goes around comes around, right? 'Treat others as you wish to be treated.' Don't think you can take this away from me, _freak_."

Outwardly, Clark's stare hardened, inwardly, he flinched. He didn't have the time to prepare for Jeremy rushing forward and grabbing him by the neck. Electricity flooded over his body as the momentum of Jeremy's charge took them back to slam into the wall.

The meteor rock's effect still lingered, and Clark momentarily saw stars as the back of his head was rammed against the brick. He dropped quickly to the floor, leaving Jeremy towering over him. A cruel sneer split the man's face, and he again kicked Clark viciously in the ribs.

Clark bit back a groan and tried to stumble to his feet, but Jeremy was there, pinning him to the floor like some immovable weight. Cocking his fist and letting the electricity run wild across his clenched fingers, Jeremy smiled grimly into Clark's face, showing bloody teeth.

Then Jeremy yelled and rolled away, the electricity flooding back into his body. There Chloe stood, wielding the metal leg of a chair in her hands. Her hair was plastered across her face and eyes, her dress was drenched and muddy at the hem, and she was panting so hard she looked about ready to collapse, but Clark had never thought she'd looked more beautiful than she did at that moment.

"You didn't really expect me to just go home, did you?" she asked rhetorically, making the scene seem even more ludicrous.

A hand suddenly grasped her ankle and yanked. Clark yelled as she landed ungracefully on her back, hitting her head on the wooden floor and sliding a few feet until she lay precariously half on and half off the stage. Jeremy was on her in an instant, one hand pinned her by the throat and the other waited poised to strike as electricity gathered around his palm.

"Chloe!"

Jeremy paused and glanced up at Clark with a malicious grin. His hand hovered inches from Chloe's face, occasionally sparking hotly and causing Chloe to flinch.

"Jeremy, you don't want to do this," Clark said, cautiously reaching a hand out to the pair.

"Oh, but I do," he contradicted, voice as calm as Clark's. He returned his attention to Chloe. With the hand holding her he pressed down so that her spine was bent over the edge of the stage, the back of head touching the water beneath. She whimpered at the unnatural angle her body was forced into as she tried to lean back even further, away from Jeremy.

Then Jeremy's hand descended.

Chloe screamed.

She was still screaming when Clark gently set her down on the wet grass.

Bewildered, she looked about her and saw the rest of the school gathered in the parking lot, staring slack-jawed at the hall. She could see blue flashes of light from the gaps in between the mangled door. Jeremy was nowhere to be found.

At that moment Clark helped her lean against the nearest car where she could recover her breath. The movement snapped the gathered students out of their collective trance and they turned as one to stare at Clark.

There was complete silence for a moment then excited chatter broke out, along with a few wary looks but mostly looks of relief and gratitude. For that moment Clark stood in the centre of the crowd like a startled deer in the headlights.

In his shell-shocked state he thought he heard lots of shouts of "Thanks!" and "Cool man!" but what surprised him most was to spot none other than Josh Blake in the crowd. Their eyes locked for a second, glaring at each other above the students milling about, but then one side of Josh's mouth quirked upwards in barely detectable half-smile before he turned away and shouldered his way through the crowd, nearly knocking several people over.

Clark was almost tempted to smile at his retreating back, recognising an apology when he saw one. His almost-smile faded when he caught sight of Lana at the centre of the crowd; Whitney standing protectively at her side. She started to raise a hand to wave but Clark had disappeared in a flash of colour before she had chance to.

---

Even though Chloe was ninety-nine percent sure that she'd find Clark at Chandler's Field, she still breathed a sigh of relief to see him hunched over at the top of the creaky old windmill.

His back was to her, the setting sun casting his silhouette in black and projecting a red-orange hue onto the field. With another sigh, Chloe took a deep breath, took off her high heels and hitched up her skirt to ascend the ladder.

Her fancy dress kept catching on rusty nails, so it was a very tired and cranky Chloe Sullivan that appeared at the top of the platform and plonked herself down to a brooding Clark Kent. He looked her over intensely, concern flaring in his eyes as he saw a bruise above her eye. She smiled to show that she was fine. They didn't speak for a while, but that was ok somehow. It was ok to just sit and be quiet, watching the last of the sun's rays fight for dominance with roiling black clouds that threatened its reign.

At length, Chloe broke the stillness. "Thank you for saving my life."

Clark stirred and glanced at her warily for the first time. He said nothing but the question in his wide eyes said it all.

Chloe smiled softly. "It's ok, you know. Using your powers, I mean."

Clark's eyes widened even further then closed suddenly. He turned his head away, up to the sun.

"Everyone saw," he stated dully.

"Yes," Chloe replied truthfully. "They saw what they already knew you were capable of, it was no surprise." That last part was a bit of a lie, it really was a different thing to be told someone's from outer space and has amazing powers, it's another thing to be shown these amazing powers in a spectacular life or death fight.

"I guess." Clark said quietly, his shoulders hunched.

"You haven't used your powers for a long, long time, have you?" Chloe prodded gently. His head whipped up and he stared at her intently.

"No," Clark admitted eventually. "I… I sort of wanted to forget I had them. If I didn't use them they wouldn't be there… then all these memories would go… go away…" His eyes suddenly cleared of the far-off look and he shook his head angrily. "It didn't work. I still remember everything."

"What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger," Chloe murmured.

Clark nodded and sighed deeply. "Maybe. I wish it hadn't happened all the same."

"Hey," Chloe said, reaching out a hand to touch his tense shoulder. He jerked at her touch then froze. This time she didn't pull away but left her hand there, drawing lazy circles on his back. "It'll be ok. I promise. Nobody gives a rat's ass about what you can do."

Clark chuckled at her colourful use of language against his will and peered up at her from behind his fringe. "Really? You don't give a rat's ass?"

"No!" Chloe exclaimed vehemently, then more quietly, "No, no of course not. I actually think the superhero deal's kinda cool."

Clark smiled hesitantly. "I'm sorry about tonight. I should have been there for you."

Chloe shook her head and shuffled closer to him. "You were there for me," she protested firmly, looking up into his eyes. "Just not in the way I'd imagined," she added after a second's thought and they both laughed quietly.

The silly grin faded from her face when she realised how close they were… her eyes flicked down to his mouth then back up to his eyes, which seemed much more intense somehow…Clark's lips were so close…

She leaned up in a moment of recklessness, running her hand around the back of his head in his soft hair, and incredibly, he leaned down, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. Their lips finally met and Chloe melted against his chest, feeling sure that if he hadn't been there to catch her she would have swooned right off the windmill. The kiss was both passionate and sweet, passionate in the realization of new feelings and sweet in the hope of feelings to come.

They broke apart for air what seemed to them like only a second later, both gasping slightly. Chloe closed her eyes lazily, running over the sensations in her mind again. She felt a warm hand on her cheek and opened her eyes.

"What was that for?" Clark was asking breathlessly, and Chloe was pleased to see his pupils were dilated.

"I know you've been thinking about it since we met so I figured we'd get it out of the way and be friends," Chloe was even more pleased to see his smile fade at that last part. She took a breath then added nervously, "Or more than friends, if you liked it."

"I… I liked it," Clark said shyly, and it suddenly occurred to Chloe that that was his first kiss. An involuntary thrill ran through her at the thought that she was his first kiss.

"Good. 'Cause I liked it too," she replied, reeling in her dizzy grin that wanted to burst free.

"Ok?" Clark said. There was no need for him to explain what he meant; they both knew.

Chloe closed her eyes, letting the blissful grin spread over her face again. She leaned up and kissed him again, her lips lingering next to his ear once she'd pulled away.

"Ok," she confirmed in an enticing whisper. "Everything will be ok."

"_You'll be ok," Lex promised, unable to disguise the urgency in his voice. Every few seconds he would check his watch and peer fretfully into the enclosing darkness. A tension so palpable Clark felt he could touch it hung in the air, heightening their paranoia._

_Clark just nodded; throat dry as the Sahara desert. Hands pressed against the dividing glass door, he squinted in a vain attempt to see down the long dark corridor, but it was useless. He quickly pulled his hands away when the sting of green pain became too much._

_At precisely 6:00pm Lex gave Clark one last reassurance, then reluctantly slipped away down the corridor._

_Clark rocked back on his heels forlornly, glum with the knowledge that he was on his own from now on. He ran though the plan once again in his mind, checking for details with a thorough eye._

_The wailing screech startled him even though he'd been waiting on tenterhooks for hours for it to sound._

_Without a second's thought he shot to his feet and pressed on the glass door once more. It swung open with a sound like gunfire and suddenly he was running, sprinting down monotonous grey corridors that seemed to run beside him, pounding encouragement in his ear._

_The alarm faded in and out of earshot with every speaker he flashed passed, jolting a rhythm in time with his heart. The marble was like ice on his bare feet and just as slippery, several times he almost fell, only to blunder against the nearest wall and somehow right himself. He took to running with one hand against the wall and watching his feet as he raced for his life, watching as his feet carried him closer and closer to freedom._

_Lex had promised a family. School. Friends. A real life, like the one he used to take for granted all those years ago. The sterile lab had bleached those memories to something distant, intangible… until now. _

_Clark dared not let himself the luxury of smiling yet, but his heart felt considerably lighter as the open door came into sight. The light at the end of the tunnel. Giddiness threatened to overwhelm him._

_A figure suddenly stepped into view at the end of the tunnel, a black silhouette of a man that obscured the beautiful light. Clark's joy plummeted and he skidded out of control on the shiny floor as he tried to stop._

_Panting, he finally got his limbs under control and was on the point of turning back when the figure calmly raised his gun. Locked in place, Clark simply stared lifelessly at Lionel Luthor._

_There was a soft click as Lionel pulled back the safety. "Hello, Clark. What are you doing out of bed at this time of night?" he said with the quiet voice of a predator._

_Clark swallowed and said nothing._

"_Surely you didn't think you'd get away with this, Clark?" Lionel continued with a patronising little laugh. "I mean, it's ridiculous, thinking you could escape all by yourself." He tilted his head mock-curiously. "But oh dear, you couldn't possibly have set the alarm off, could you? You were locked up at the time! Which means you must have an accomplice. Tell me now and it won't hurt as much."_

_Clark was sorely tempted to spit but unfortunately he'd been too 'locked up' to ever learn how. He settled for narrowing his eyes and setting his jaw._

_Lionel's eyes narrowed too. His finger twitched angrily on the trigger, close, but not close enough to set the gun off._

"_Tell me now!"_

_Clark raised his chin defiantly. "I'm not telling you anything."_

"_You insolent-"_

_Lionel's finger twitched violently on the trigger. There was a loud bang and a flash of blinding light._

_Clark yelled and stumbled forwards. Shadows danced across the hallway, a contrast with the bright sunlight that made anything impossible to make out. As a result he almost tripped over Lionel's body. Blood pooled around his head like some sort of satanic halo. There was a perfectly round hole in his forehead, as if it'd been expertly drilled there. Lionel twitched for a few seconds, then lay still._

_Above him Lex stood, a gun smoking gently in his outstretched hand._

_Slowly he raised his eyes to Clark's. A moment of shocked silence passed between them, then Lex stuffed the gun into his pocket. He turned and walked to stand in the doorway, where he looked back at Clark over his shoulder almost nonchalantly._

"_Coming?"_

_Shell-shocked, Clark nodded mutely and stepped over Lionel's body into the sunlight. It cascaded over him, glorious and tangible once more. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of freedom. The air was rank, smoky and thick, yet it had never smelt so good to Clark. Heavy raindrops plastered his shirt and dripped off the end of his nose but he laughed deliriously, there, amongst the rats and the dumpsters and the pouring rain, he laughed to be alive._

**End of Part Eight**

**Aww this chapter makes me cry. Well, there's only an epilogue left now. It's not very long so I'll post it tomorrow. Thanks for reviewing, please do so again!**


	10. Epilogue

**Technically this isn't finished, but technically I promised this yesterday... so it'll have to do for now, sorry. Merry Christmas!**

**Mega thank you to htbthomas for betaing!**

**Diverse  
****Epilogue: Liberation**

By definition, fate is unchangeable, unrelenting, irreversible. Because if it's your fate to become the world's greatest hero, there's not much you can to change it, no matter how much you may want to. Some argue that this is a bad thing, those who fear their destiny instead of embracing it naturally choose not to believe that they have no real choices. To others fate is kinder, they are less adverse to the idea that they owe some of the triumphs of their lives to fate rather than their own actions; destiny is the invisible force pushing us onward to greater things. Following that logic, anything that is thrown our way can be overcome because fate is on our side - anything is possible no matter how bleak the beginnings appear.

---

The cold metal was slippery under his hands and feet. Still he persisted, determinedly pulling himself up the side of the Daily Planet globe.

The early morning chill whipped his dark hair about wildly in the wind, but his alien skin prevented the ice seeping through to his bones. He could not shiver.

"Not far now…" He murmured to the air. He hoped the darkness would cover his ascent, and he would not be dragged down before he'd had the chance to do what he'd come to do.

A sudden spike of fear clutched his heart as he rounded the peak of the sphere and caught his first glimpse of Metropolis, two hundred feet up.

He almost slipped as he rose to a standing position atop the globe. The icy metal froze his feet to the surface, but the view alone was worth the long climb up. Metropolis at night was spectacular. Skyscrapers sprawled out as far as the eye could see, lights still twinkling prettily from every window despite the ungodly hour. Cars were still and silent in their drives. Their owners slept peacefully, unaware of their silent watcher.

Clark breathed a soft sigh and outstretched his arms, feeling the breeze on his face.

Seven years ago today he had attended Jonathan Kent's funeral.

Two years ago today, in precisely four hours' time, he had attended Chloe Sullivan's funeral.

In the near future, he hoped to be attending Lex Luthor's funeral for what he'd done to his high school girlfriend.

Needless to say, today wasn't a good day. It held a lot of memories for him, too many of them sad. But he'd discovered long ago that dwelling on bad memories for too long was not good for the soul, or mind. So, he'd looked to the future. And he'd found Metropolis. He'd found the Daily Planet. He'd found Lois Lane.

She was everything that Chloe had been and more. She hated him, but that fact was irrelevant. He loved her, but that fact was irrelevant to her.

He sighed once more and stepped to the edge of the globe, peering down at the dots that were parked cars below. He wondered if this was how Dad and Chloe could view him from 'Up There.' Like a little ant down on the ground.

A wave of sorrow suddenly hit him and he closed his eyes, wavering on the edge. Tears leaked out from the corners of his eyes, streaking his face with misery and forgotten love.

His past would always be a part of him; he could not erase those memories or try to ignore them any more.

Clark leaned out over the abyss.

He dug his dingers into the metal to keep himself from falling just yet and closed his eyes tightly against the vertigo that threatened to overwhelm him. The tears were lashed away by the harsh wind until they were old and dry on his face, until he had no more tears to cry.

Seconds passed slowly as he teetered on the edge, steeling himself for what he was about to do. He opened his eyes briefly to look down at the vertical drop and quickly shut them again. He mumbled encouragement under his breath, finding his inner calm.

Hours passed and Clark still hung from the sphere, waiting for the right moment. The sun cast its first few rays of light across the cityscape, warm against his eyelids.

With a smile on his face, Superman opened his eyes, and flew for the first time.

**Fin**

**Wow I can't believe it's over. Thanks of course to my wonderful beta htbthomas who will be annoyed that I've posted this chapter like this. ;) Thank you everyone who reviewed, I can't get enough of them and reviews really do encourage you to write and update quicker. I'll reply to them a soon as possible, right now I have a film to watch and some christmas pudding to eat. Just thank you everyone and have a very merry christmas:D**


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